The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era
by Patchwork Poltergeist
Summary: Reader, in ancient days, the old lords of the world numbered in thousands. Then hundreds. Then even less. Now, they are found only in tapestries and fanciful ballads. The creatures are all vanished. All but one.
1. Iron and Mortar

The human lived in the iron city, and he lived all alone.

He no longer had the small, round shape of his fat-faced youth, and when he stood to full height the human was tall and lean and spindly, like a sapling out of its first few years. Two long legs were all that supported him, despite the fact the he could easily use his shorter arms for support, and even lacking a tail for balance. His stride was smooth all the same.

His hide was the color of bark from a yew tree, with the soft, thin delicacy of a flower petal. The majority of his body had barely any fur to protect him from the elements. A light dusting of fuzz ran along his limbs and a slightly thicker patch of hair trailed his jawline, but that was all. The only true bit of fur on him was a mane of soft, dark curls, which had the thickness of sheep wool.

Against the elements, this meager bit of hair was certainly not enough for the man, even in his metal shelters, and he wrapped himself in woven cloth and leathers to compensate. In the winter even this was not enough, and often spent his nights curled up tight and shivering in the corners of his buildings.

Certainly, the human was not the strongest of creatures. At least, not physically. Despite a similar shape to the minotaur, he had none of their bulk, nor half their strength. He was outpaced by many of his fellow predators: the wolf, the mountain lion, the bear, and even their smaller cousins the cat and coyote. The slowest of ponies could outrun him barely going into a trot. His teeth were almost comically small and practically useless in combat.

From the ends of his arms stretched out thin paws that split into five long, tapering digits ending in blunt little pink claws. They were not unlike a dragon's claws, though to directly compare the two would be a mistake. The paws had an elegant grace dragons never had, their fingers a nimbleness that raccoons only dreamt of, and diamond dogs had only brutish imitation.

Indeed, they were not truly paws at all, but something else entirely: hands. With them he was able to carry, lift and twist. By their power alone the human called forth fire to be his servant. For him it was a simple manipulation of wood, stone, sometimes the sun and glass. A puff of air from his lung gave it life, and grateful fires crackled tamely for him. Flames grew and shrank and gave off smoke according to only his hands and will.

No horn, no magic, no spells. None at all.

With a movement the delicate digits folded under to make a blunt attacking instrument: the fist. In the times just a fist did not suit him — often, for fists were still made of breakable bone— the human simply created something else that worked better.

Every object around him could be manipulated to serve his needs. Metal bent backwards into whatever shape he wished, helping him pry open tight spaces, or smash in a skull. He took harmless bits of twigs and sharpened them into sharp spikes to impale flesh, or fiercer yet, sharpened his metals into blades sharp as griffin talons.

With these he tore into the other animals fierce as any other predator, catching them by surprise in traps and throwing his sharp twigs into the air, killing even when he was far away.

The river along the east side of his territory was where he often hunted, taking the ducks on the bank and fish in the water, and squirrels in the trees. On his city's edge he could sometimes catch rabbits, or if he was exceptionally lucky, a deer.

These creatures he was the most fond of killing, not only because they had more meat than squirrels, but he could also peel the pelts from off their bones to create a sort of macabre pelt for himself. He did not prey on his fellow carnivore for whatever reason, although if he felt a hunger one day for coyote or falcon or tomcat, there would be nothing stopping him.

More often he ate pigeons. A long time ago, the hands of his mother and grandmother had taken a metal fence, warped and twisted it into a cage, then captured many pigeons to keep inside it. The human's mother told him once that when she was small, the birds were wild, pecking at hands and beating their wings uselessly against the cage. The man always found this hard to believe, with the way pigeons waddled carelessly about the enclosure, happy as can be to alight on his shoulder and then defecate on it. (They had a habit of defecating on everything and there was sadly no way to make them stop.)

Every three days his pigeons were let out to fly all about the city, and came back to him by the end of the day. When they had become fat enough, the hands stopped petting their feathers and snapped their necks instead. Some days he felt a little sad about eating them. After all, they were his only companions.

His very favorites even had names, names he gathered from the ancient words that surrounded him: Park, Yield, Subway, Fines, Low-Bridge, Starbucks, and little One-Way, who had a charming spot on his head. These six the man resolved to never eat, even in the winter when food was scarce. He still had no problem devouring their brethren, however.

The human fancied sometimes that pigeons could understand his language, and some days as the sun went down he held them close, softly whispering to them. He wondered if they somehow remembered his mother, who raised them from eggs before she died of the winter coughs. He knew they probably didn't, but he fancied the thought anyway.

* * *

One spring afternoon, new creatures came to the city.

Two of the little ponies that were nothing like the ancient ponies walked under the bridge spanning the river. The first was an earth pony that moved cautiously as she stepped along; the second, a unicorn, trotted merrily alongside her.

The man frowned, a little disappointed the hoof beats he heard weren't from a deer after all. Certainly he wasn't about to try hunting ponies. As a rule, eating things that spoke was a bad idea. But he still thought them interesting to watch.

They were smaller than the human had imagined them to be, with coats that were shockingly bright against their drab surroundings. The unicorn was the white of fresh sidewalks and road paints, and a silky blue tail with caution-yellow streaks streamed behind her. The earth pony friend's green mane was cut short and sensible, and she was the warm terra-cotta color of newly made bricks.

"I dislike the feel of this place," said the earth pony. "The soil in a human's city can soak in the unnatural elements around it in time. Bad place for making houses."

The unicorn laughed — a high, tinkling sound. "Humans!_ Really?_ Humans?! Why, my dear Topsoil, here I was thinking you so modern and rational. You old jokester, you." She started to laugh again, but it died when she noticed her companion frowning.

"I am just as rational as I have ever been, thank you. Furthermore, have you _ever_ known me to chaff, Light Heart?"

"Aww." Light Heart jostled Topsoil's shoulder, but the frown just deepened. "_Awww_, come on. Don't be sore, old girl, you know I don't mean anything by it. But truthfully, now. You've seen too many tapestries, dear."

"Hm. Maybe you haven't seen enough of them."

"The humans are all long gone by now and lost to the ages, if there even was such a fantastic creature to start with. These are just ruins like any other." Light Heart paused to examine some iron girders. "Aren't they?"

The earth pony experimentally tapped on a rock. "Then why don't vines climb the walls, or blades of grass burst out from small cracks in the stone? I can't feel the earth under my hooves at all. Not even a little. Only hardness. Why do many of the flowers only grow in boxes? Have you noticed there aren't any animals here?"

"Well, I did see a pigeon earlier. It was little and white; so cute!"

Topsoil raised an eyebrow. "And what else besides that? In all the other forgotten ruins ponies find otters in the streams, eagles nesting in the iron trees, and possums sleeping in the shade. There are some creatures here, yes, but most of them seem to be hiding. There are barely any fish in this river. What do you suppose they are hiding from?"

Light Heart had nothing to say to that.

"I tell you," Topsoil continued, "there is at least one human left in the world, and as long as it roams these roads we cannot make a home here. Ponies and humans should never live so close together. I know their ways, humans."

"Do you think…" The unicorn looked around and lowered her voice. "Do you think we might chase it out?"

"You know better than that. Even believing they never existed, you know better than that."

For a short time, the ponies walked on in silence. Then Topsoil said, "You know... my ancestor met a human once."

"Oh?"

"Great Great Grandmother Shady. She used to tell me about it when I was a filly. Spent quite a while with it, actually."

"Goodness me!" Light Heart gasped. "However did she get away?"

"Get away? Why, Grandmother couldn't get enough of the creature! Absolutely adored it."

"Did the human use a golden bridle to drain her willpower? Or weave a terrible net to catch her with? Oh, my, was there torture involved?"

A little smile crossed Topsoil's face. "No," she said. "No bridles or nets or torture. The human used friendship. They would frolic in the valley, picking berries, singing silly songs, and watching over the foals."

"She let the human touch _foals_?"

"Oh, yes. Lots of times the human was the one who helped the little ones settle down for a nap. A couple of times it helped Grandmother Shady chase away mean, troublesome creatures that threatened the valley. I think it was her friend. There was sometimes bitterness when she talked about the human; usually her stories were about how it liked to spend time with other ponies instead of her. Then she'd grouse and complain about it for the rest of the day." Topsoil laughed, "But then again, Grandma Shady complained about everything."

"Sounds nothing like any human I ever heard of."

"T'was a special breed, I think. It was smaller, with a longer mane it kept tied back with a bow, the way ponies in those days tied them at the base of their tails. I think it was a sign of solidarity, maybe." Topsoil flipped her tail in thought. "It was a breed called a… Morgana? A Marvel? Hmm. Oh! No, no, no, I remember: a Megan! My Great Great Grandmother Shady was friends with a Megan."

Light Heart suddenly burst into a grin. "Oh! Maybe the Megan breed lives here! Could it, Topsoil? It could, couldn't it? Maybe we could get it to help us build a house on this strange soil or maybe we could just live peacefully as neighbors. These ruins are so big; surely it wouldn't mind giving up a little room?"

"Hmm. I don't think so. Not many humans are Megans. They were always a rare breed, I think. And even if it was, we still couldn't live here. Even the Megan human Grandmother Shady knew always went back home at the end of the day. Shady slept in her own little house, and the Megan went to its own. We never live in the same place, I told you. Maybe travel together, or come around for a visit, but not live together. It simply is not done."

Light Heart sighed. "Alright. Alright, let's turn around. Look for somewhere else to live." Her face crumpled up miserably. "Oh, but Topsoil, there isn't anypony for miles and miles and miles of here. It was so perfect!"

The earth pony leaned into the Unicorn for a nuzzle. "I know. I know, dearest. Don't worry. We will find another place."

The human peered further out of his hiding place by the wall to watch them go. When they were almost out of sight, the earth Pony suddenly looked back.

In a high voice she called, "Stay where you are, creature of contradictions! This is no world for you. Keep your walls strong and your city secure. Let us leave each other in peace, yes? And, human! I beg you, take care, for you are the last."

After a few moments assured the ponies would not be back, the man approached the spot where they'd been. A tuft of mane caught on a rivet fluttered in the wind. It was sky blue and very soft.

"I am the only human there is?"

They were the first words he'd spoken in nearly a year. The loudness of his own voice frightened him. Until the traveling ponies, the man hadn't realized how much he missed the sound of another voice, the sound of words and laughter and sighs.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"But that just can't be. How could there be none at all? A tiny number scattered here and there, a very very rare thing, certainly. But not gone entirely."

After all, if the Unicorn was wrong about humans living in the city, the hornless pony could have been wrong as well. Just because she hadn't seen or heard of any didn't mean there weren't any.

"Yes," he said finally. "She must have been mistaken." He left resolving to forget the incident altogether.

For ten whole minutes he succeeded.

* * *

The human lived near the riverbank, in a stout little building that looked a bit silly compared to the majestic high-rises nearby. There was not a building in the entire city he loved more.

Here he discovered that while hands were impressive all on their own, armed with knowledge they were marvels. This place taught his hands to weave baskets and hammocks and a hat for himself. He learned to craft fine bowls of clay and write poetry. (It was very bad, but still poetry.) The human had always climbed trees, but it the library taught him their names. It helped him let a sad old violin sing for the first time in decades. Voices of the dead told him of ancient kingdoms with bizarre names in a far off time where people could fly and ponies only said "neigh". A time before the fires blossomed across the sky and burned the flesh off everybody's bones.

In those ancient times this place was called a library. The man simply called it home.

But there were no voices of ancient eras that afternoon Echoes from equines hung about him like a shroud. It was such an odd choice of words. They said the humans were "vanished" or "gone". Not "killed", not "extinct", not "dead". Gone. And one did not simply go somewhere without ending up someplace else.

He sat curled in a corner of wall and bookshelf, miserable with doubt and curiosity. For the first time in years there was something he didn't know and that the library couldn't tell him. When he was younger, before he found the library, if he needed to know something he would ask his mother. If _she_ needed to know something (though she already knew a great deal) she'd give a note to one of the pigeons and send away to someone beyond the city, then get a new note back.

The human stood in search of spare paper and something to write with.

When Park and One-Way flew back to him, papers still freshly tied to their feet, the human remembered. The last time a bird flew a message was over fifteen summers ago. Subway, the oldest pigeon in the coop, was only thirteen. The human could always just train them to send messages, but that would take time he suddenly couldn't afford.

The only other way to find out was to see for himself. No, that was a horrible idea. Or maybe it wasn't. Just a matter of asking somebody and coming right back, yes? No. No, it was foolish. He belonged here, in the city. Here with his pigeons and sidewalks and garden and skyscrapers and graffiti and dead poets. If he didn't take care of it, who would?

"I've been fine on my own, anyway."

At the sound of his name, Fines landed upon the man's shoulder. Hands grasped the little white pigeon, held him out and asked, "Why do I even need to know what became of the others? I'm sure they're all doing no better or worse than I am, and if not, what business of it is mine? None. If other people needed my help they would seek me out, and they haven't. So that's that."

Fines blinked little pink eyes.

"So glad you agree."

He let the bird go to join Park and One-Way in the aviary. The human watched the three of them peck at their pile of seeds.

"But..."

_What if they need me?_

"Suppose. Suppose they weren't able to come find me? In danger and unable to leave?"

_What if they need me?_

One-Way hopped after a cricket and ate it with a snap. Fines jealousy glared at her from his perch. Crickets were much better than seed. The sun sank behind the spires and shining towers. They looked like a row of teeth from here.

The human wasn't brave enough to say it out loud. A frightened whisper in the dark, hidden in a fog of flapping wings. "What if they need me?"


	2. River Reeds

Some strips of dried meat, three apples, extra socks and shirts, a rope, his knives, an extra pair of tough pants, fishing wire, needle and thread, a box of matches, two Twinkies, and his favorite book. All packed neatly into a sack. A _small_ sack.

This was not an expedition. This was not an adventure. This was a small outing. Leave, find something that spoke, ask around until assured humanity still existed (which it of course did). Then go straight home.

He gathered his courage and walked. Morning shadows from a forgotten empire hid him from the sun as he traveled southward down the tame river that flowed through the wide expanse of concrete. The human moved quickly, with only fleeting glances at passing scenery. He wasn't sure he could get his legs moving again if they stopped.

Here was where he killed a den of coyotes without any remorse. Over there by the mailbox, the bench he sat on as he made a splint for an old injured grackle.

Several blocks farther, the gutted out mall he lived in before the library. A block after, the blackened remains of what once was a red pickup truck burned from the inside out.

The first tall tree he climbed and below that, the sidewalk where he broke his leg. The same sidewalk where warm, strong arms held him until he stopped crying, and was told he had to try to be brave even though his leg really hurt and it was scary.

Many, many dead streetlights near all of these. Some bent or fallen over from wind or age or neglect, but most still standing with a sort of mournful dignity. And then the one lamp that still lit and hummed when the sun went down.

An empty lot where shrubs and flowers grew around a humble gathering of stone markers jutting from the grass. Here was the only spot where the human took pause. He gathered bits of honeysuckle and pressed them carefully between the pages of his book. In return, he left sprays of flax flowers and pink carnations around the stones.  
And the man walked on.

The human followed the river until the pavement was broken up more and more by dandelions and wild grasses. At last he came to a point where there was only the dirt, grass, and stray leaves under his boots. Only then the human looked behind him. There was a faint blob of greys and browns in the distance, a tower's silhouette tried to touch the clouds. He took a breath, filled it with the taste of iron, asphalt, brick, and mortar.

The human ignored the tightness in his heart and went forward.

* * *

Through the hours, days, and weeks the human rose before the sun and traveled until it was too dark to clearly see or his feet ached too much for another step. Whichever came first. The river ran beside him and the farther it ran away from the iron city, the wilder it got. At home it flowed so tame and still that it hardly moved. Now the water burbled and laughed constantly, and the human had to be careful the laundry wasn't swept away.

And the sky. He could hardly believe it was the same sky from the city. Out here it wasn't cut into little sections by tall buildings. The sheet of blue just went on and on. The human kept close to the trees whenever he could to hide his smallness from it.

The food ran out quickly and the human was glad he decided to follow the river where there was no shortage of supplies. The creatures that came for water had no fear of him and fell easily under his knives. Almost too easily. Most of them ran hardly a foot before they were caught– why, a hare practically climbed into his lap once. It almost felt… unfair sometimes. Of course, his lovely new deerskin cloak and the warm juices of hare meat kept it from seeming _that_ unfair.

Such plenty kept his steps spritely and heart light, despite the fact he traveled for miles and found little information of other humans. The ponies that visited his city were right — nobody around for ages.

The man saw an old yellow unicorn once, but she was no help at all. They discovered each other after he woke up from a nap and she nearly tripped over his legs. He asked several times about his people, but the old thing was deaf to his questions.

She'd just peered at him strangely, musing to herself about "how cold the little hairless yeti must be." The unicorn was likely senile too, for when he moved away she followed him down the riverbank with a blanket and some vines. She kept calling out bizarre things. Things like "Here, now. Here, boy!" and "Poor little dear" and "I won't hurt you, my chuck," over and over. How absurd — as if the frail mare could ever hurt _him_! The human had to run ahead a bit and hide in a tree before the unicorn gave up and went away.

"What a silly pony," he mused to himself later, "To not know a man when she looks right at one. Ha, who knows? Perhaps there are thousands of people walking the earth, and only the foolish ponies ever run into them."

One morning after a fresh breakfast of trout and blackberries the human found himself in an exceptionally bright mood. He was splayed out in the grass letting the sun soak in his bones, with his pants rolled up high and long legs dangling in the river. It put him in the mind of his city in the summer when it was warm enough to swim, but cool enough to walk upon the pavement without burning his bare feet. For once the thought of home cheered him, and waving his feet in the water the human sang to himself:

"_Don't sit under the apple tree_  
_With anyone else but me_  
_Anyone else but me, anyone else but me_  
_No, no, no,_  
_Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me_  
_Till I come marching home._  
_Don't_... Hm."

How did the next part to that song go? It had been so long since the last time he sang it and the human didn't bring a book of lyrics. Suddenly, as if too impatient to wait for him to catch up, the song continued without him:

"_Don't go walking down lovers' lane_  
_With anyone else but me_  
_Anyone else but me_"

The voice rang out from the river, clear and beautiful as crystal bells. The human, suddenly very embarrassed about his own singing voice, timidly sang back, "_Anyone else but me_?"

"_Anyone else but me_!" the voice cried.

The human looked around, but found nobody there.

"_No, no no, don't go walking down lovers' lane_"

The human looked up into the trees and across the river, nobody there.

"_Till I come marching home_!"

The human looked down. A pony in the water looked back with eyes too big for her head. "Hello!" she giggled, "Is it me you're looking for?"

No. No, not exactly a pony. She (presuming it was a she) certainly had the head of a pony, but her body was long and curvy, ending in a little tail that curled around a rock to keep from drifting away. There were fins instead of hooves, and her garishly pink pelt was smooth and shiny, like a fish or an eel. It was iridescent when the sun hit her at certain angles, like oil puddles after rainfall.

"Like a seahorse," the human mused to himself. "Or maybe a sea..._pony_?"

The creature waved its little fins at him and delightedly sang, "_Shoo-be-doo! Shoo-shoo-be-doo!_"

Seaponies know songs the way a pegasus knows clouds. In them is every lyric, every whistle, every tune, lyric, and hum that ever was or will be, for they are old as the tides. Outliving even the dragons by a fair millenium, seaponies have the time to rehearse them all perfectly. Songs are the only things they know, however, and they can only hold so much music at once. Words are shared between them like pollen among flowers, usually approaching land creatures in a chorus of three, five, or twelve to sing a conversation. A seapony alone struggles to keep all the songs straight, one colliding with the other. A tangible conversation with a lone seapony is nothing short of miraculous.

The human yearned for straight and simple answers, and knew none of this.

Reader, pity him.

"But wouldn't a seapony belong in the sea?" he wondered. "You're a bit far from the sea, aren't you?"

"I'm a deep water sailor just come from Hong Kong, you give some whiskey I'll sing you a song. Sometimes, I sleep. Sometimes it's not for days. Drop the anchor, lift my heart." The seapony flourished a dramatic fin. "I will be there and everywhere, here there and everywhere but my life, my love and the lady is the sea."

"You must have traveled far."

"I am a traveller of both time and space. Keep a little birdhouse in your soul," she told him. The seapony rested her head upon the shore, tangles of seagreen mane clinging to her face. For a time she watched the man's legs floating in the water, humming shoo-be-doos.

Then she peered curiously at him, "Are you going to Scarborough Faire?"

"Err, pardon?"

"If you're going to San Francisco," she informed him, "Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. They tell me a fault line runs right through here. Atlantis will rise, Sunset Boulevard will fall. Better start swimmin', or you you'll sink like a stone!" The seapony grinned little sharp teeth, "Where the beach use to be, won't be nothin' at all."

The human wasn't sure what most of that was supposed to mean, but mention of ancient San Francisco lit a candle in his heart. "Do you think you can help me? I am looking for somebody."

"Don't you want somebody to love? Love does exactly what it wants to do!"

"Um. No, not exactly. I'm looking for someone that looks like me." Suddenly he thought of the strange old mare who chased him with the vines. A knot tied in his stomach. "Can you even tell what I am?"

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together", the pink pony told him. When the human wilted, she pressed against him and soothed, "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. You could hide beside me, maybe for a while? And I won't tell no one your name."

"Really. Then what is it, then? What am I?"

"Andy, you're a star! You are my shining star, you are my only sunshine." The seapony tugged on his leg and gestured to the river, "Black hole sun, won't you come? If the sun don't come you get a tan from standing in the English rain."

Against the assault of good cheer and the sun still pleasant on his shoulders, the human's melancholy slipped away. He laughed, though he knew there wasn't much to laugh at.

Satisfied, the seapony came back to the surface and smiled at him. The human reached out a hand to offer her some of the blackberries leftover from breakfast, but the pony made a face at them. Then she sneezed a little jet of bubbles.

"You're sort of a silly little pony," the human told her. "You certainly mean well, even if not much help. Thank you for trying, but I need to move on. If even you don't know me, I may have farther to go than I imagined and the morning is already over. Farewell, little seapony." He brought his legs out of the water and reached for his socks and boots.

In the river the seapony tilted her head and frowned. She bobbed in the water absently humming, "He's got the whole world in his hands, he's got the whole world in his hands..."

And then, the pony recited smooth and without melody: "Human. _Humanus._ Homo Sapien. Order: Primate. Family: Most likely dead. Class: Synapsida. Phylum: Chordata. Otherwise known as the 'contradiction creature', due to its unpredictable, often senseless nature and commonly mistaken for a hairless ape. A vain animal that may compose symphonies inspired by alley cats, but cannot imagine the world going on without them. The augmentation of the earth and adorner of ships. How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? He is wise enough to win the world, but fool enough to lose it. Man has cried a billion tears for what he never knew, now man's reign is through. Duck and cover, the future's so bright I gotta wear shades! _Shoo-be-doo! Shoo-shoo-be-doo!_"

The human stared in shock.

After a moment, the seapony gently added, "It is also _very_ bad at singing."

For some time the human could only sit there, frozen in time with his hand still in the air holding his sock.

The seapony puffed out her little chest smugly. Then she twisted about to watch a frog hopping along in the grass. "Jerimiah was a bullfrog," she told the human helpfully.

A hand grasped her chin to keep her focus, "Please. Please, miss, all I want to know is if you've seen other people like me. I don't care what kind, any sort would satisfy me. Just even one you've seen sitting by another river, or boating upon the sea, or living underground? Somewhere. Anywhere! Please, just tell me you've seen one and I swear I will believe you and go home and never bother you again."

The seapony sniffed at the smell of dead trout on his fingers. "Her mind is Tiffany twisted," she apologized. "Somewhere a queen is weeping. Somewhere a king has no wife. Out there there's a world outside of Yonkers, way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby."

The human began to move away, but a two little fins grasped his wrist and refused to release him. She was surprisingly strong.

"There's a slick town, Barnaby! Out there, full of shine and full of sparkles. Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby." The creature snorted a little jet of bubbles. "Listen, Barnaby! Agh! People hearing without listening. Nowhere man, please listen! You don't know what you're missing!"

She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration and shook her head as if trying to get something out of her mane.

"Listen. The white roc soared o'er the sky, and the human beings, all of them clutched close against its feathered breast."

The human knelt down on the bank to meet the seapony's wide, lavender eyes. "I am listening, but I don't understand. Even in these wild lands, surely rocks cannot fly. Can they?"

After a moment he added, "And my name is not Barnaby."

There was a beat of silence as the seapony floated there with her eyes clamped shut. Then in a voice eerily clear and devoid of laughter she told him, "For all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of an enormous size. Cloudy quills twelve paces long and thick in proportion. Bright eyes, burning like fire. And oh, it's so strong to seize a man — one and one and one is three — into its claws. And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more. Ah, look at all the lonely people! I hear her singing in sighing of the wind blowing in the treetops way above me. All the lonely people, where do they all belong?"

"Little one, where are the others? Where did they go?"

"Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes," she said gravely. "Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes."

"I still don't understand."

But the focus in her voice had already unraveled back into songs, disconnected and full of wonder. "Suddenly the sun broke through. I looked around, she was gone. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

The human suddenly noticed that not only had the seapony's focus unraveled, but so had her grip upon the rock. She swept away with the current like a butterfly in a high wind, a blur of pink in the distance. Over the water, or perhaps under it, the bell voice called, "Sing a song of fire, lest you fall into the dark!"

Then only sounds of water rushing over rocks and a mockingbird scolding from a tree branch.

"She seemed to know what I was," the human said to himself. "That's something at least." Then again, the seapony could have just been reciting another song she heard somewhere. It could have meant absolutely nothing. "And what was all that about a roc?"

The sun had already dried his wet legs, and was too hot for a cloak. Blossoms in the trees had been replaced with unripe fruit. "Summer must be here. Summer already."

He'd been gone far too long. The human hoped his pigeons were still doing alright. Poor Fines must miss him terribly.

The seapony's talk wasn't much to go on, but still better than nothing. The human gathered his things together and went at a brisk pace, leaving behind the leftover berries to shrivel in the sun.

The man only went half a mile before stopping again. It was barely mid-afternoon, but it somehow felt as if he'd walked for days. The pack became unbearably heavy, and the cloak kept getting in his way. And he could hardly see... had the sun always been this bright?

The human settled down among the reeds, using his things as a makeshift pillow. The reeds looked healthy and sturdy; he could weave a hat for himself to make the sun more bearable and this way the time cut from today's journey wouldn't be completely wasted.

The brim was only half done when the human's eyelids were too heavy to lift. He curled his cloak about him and drifted to sleep, strands of reeds still clutched tightly in his hand.

* * *

The wheels groaned and a great clatter erupted in the night as the wagons crashed against each other from the sudden stop. A cluster of plovers scattered to the air just before the pony crashed through their nest, and a dormouse just barely missed getting trampled underhoof.

In the moonlight, a unicorn's silhouette cut through reeds until it reached the brown lump.  
He ran an anxious little half-circle around it once, twice, and then took a step forward and sniffed. It was an interesting scent: hints of stag, mud, fishes, honeysuckle and something… else. With a glow of silvery white, the brown cloth lifted away to reveal the sleeping creature inside.

"Well." The amber unicorn's grin reached for his ears. "Well, _well_. By the moon above, would you look at that?"

An ear swiveled at the sound of wheezing, hoofbeats, and an annoying jingle bell. The unicorn glanced to the approaching pair; a donkey and another younger unicorn close behind. "About time you louts caught up."

"And just what—" the donkey broke into a fit of coughs. "Wh-what's so important you have to near choke us to death, eh? Pullin' so hard like that's dangerous, we could 'ave died draggin' yer fool hide! Least ye can do is warn—"

"Hush!" the unicorn hissed. "I can't tell how long ago it found the nightberries; we might not have much time before it stirs."

The donkey looked at the figure in the reeds and grimaced. "What can ye even do with a sick, starvin' 'squatch anyhow? 'Twill just die afore the month is out. 'Prolly give us whatever it has and take all our fur along with it."

"You're an idiot. Not that I'm surprised." The elder unicorn turned to the younger, who was peering over the donkey's shoulder. "And what of you, soothsayer? Do you recognize this animal from your [i]wanderings [/i]through the fabric of time?" The amber stallion smirked and the donkey chuckled nastily in the back of his throat.

But the unicorn stayed quiet, eyes transfixed at the sleeping creature, his ears pricked stiff. He had not even blinked.

The elder's hoof just missed striking his nose. "Answer when you're spoken to, jangling whelp!"

The younger pony blinked rapidly, as if to make up for all the blinks he missed earlier. "I-I don't see anything worth taking. Just a furless ape is all. I... um. I saw a colony of attercop not far back, perhaps we could use those instead?"

"No. No, I want this one. Disassemble the thorn cage and bring it here. I'm not going to risk moving it, just rebuild the cage around it right here."

The donkey rolled his eyes, "So cast a sleeper and move it yerself, _I'm_ not looking for a cut up mouth."

"A spell to hold that one has not yet been crafted. Perhaps never will be. Just have to do our best with our hooves and teeth." The unicorn thought a moment. "Hm. Fetch some rope from the wagons too, while you're at it. No, on second thought, make that chains. Better safe than sorry. The one who wakes it up gets an eye full of thorns instead of a mouthful."

A medley of jingling metal and rustling grass mixed with the crickets' night chorus. In the dark, a horn's cold light shone like a star by the river. Then, as soon as it began, the sounds fell silent and there was a groan of protesting wheels and creaking wood. The light vanished.

The wind sighed in the reeds, a counterpoint for the chorus of crickets. The family of plovers landed to work on rebuilding a destroyed nest, the only evidence anyone had been there at all.


	3. Brass Bells & Black Thorns

He awoke in pain. His skin was stretched too tight and tried to smother his poor bones. His veins wouldn't stop pulsating. It was too hot for his cloak. No, this wasn't a cloak. This was heavier and clung closer to him... maybe a tunic? Too hot for a tunic, then. Why was he wearing something so hot? Summertime wasn't the time for bearskins... wait, when did he ever kill a bear?

The human tried getting rid of it to let his claustrophobic skin get some air, but to his horror discovered his arms were dead.

A traveling stranger passed through his city once, back when he was shorter than most windowsills. The man was nice and told him stories but the next morning the stranger said something about not feeling his left arm. Then he fell, dead as a power line.

Was this what it was? Was he dying? Was that why his feet couldn't move either? Was that why his head throbbed and his tongue felt too big for his mouth?

Oh. No, wait, there they were.

He could feel his feet and arms after all, they just couldn't move much. The fingers and toes still wiggled, they must be alright too. Perhaps he was not dying after all. Good to know.

The human squeezed his eyes shut and waiting for his breath to stop being jagged and rapid and hard to hold. But even when the air in his lungs moved smooth and even his head still throbbed, it was still too hot, and the light hurt his eyes. He supposed he should be grateful it was only from a candle and not the merciless glare of the sun, but even so—wait. Candles? And where was that annoying clinking sound coming from?

It was then the man realized he was no longer lying upon the soft grasses, nor did it feel like silt, mud, or even simple compact dirt. This felt… solid. It felt like a floor but he couldn't have been indoors, for there was a breeze that carried along the scent of trees. There was a low rumble of voices in the distance, and something walking in the grass. Curiosity overpowered the headache and he opened his eyes in full. There wasn't much to see, just grey floorboard.

Whatever kept his arms pulled back also kept him from standing, so he tried rolling over only to have a thousand evil sharp little somethings claw deep into his shoulder. Even through the bear hide he could feel them biting into his skin, into muscle and bone. He couldn't see, but he was sure he must be bleeding. He rolled over in the other direction, gritting his teeth down to the root to keep from crying out.

The human chewed his lip and looked up carefully. There were rows on rows of spiteful black thorns winking in the candlelight, shiny with his blood. His eye followed the thorns up and up as they arched above and around him in a wide spherical cage. It put him in the mind of some ugly parody of Cinderella's carriage. A lovely red rose blossomed on several vines for a touch of elegant irony.

The cage looked almost tall enough to stand in, but not quite. The man doubted it mattered, now that he saw the reason why he was barely able to move. His ankles were in fetters and lengths of silver chain held his arms tight against his back, threatening to pop his injured shoulder. A larger, fatter chain circled around his neck, rooted to the floor. It looked long enough to get around the enclosure, but he was sure if he somehow managed to stand up straight he'd be strangled.

"I'd keep away from the bars if I were you."

A unicorn crouched at eye level just beyond the thorns. He was the cornflower blue of a midday sky, and the shades of pink in his frazzled mane resembled the quiet dawn. The pony seemed broader than the mares the human had seen earlier, with a stouter muzzle and looking altogether less delicate, despite the gangly legs. The horn was unusually long and almost too big for his head, not unlike a pup that hadn't grown into its ears and paws. The unicorn gazed at him with dark and solemn eyes, but the little pink beard fluffing out of his chin made it hard to take them seriously. A thin black cape draped over his shoulders did its best to seem mysterious but the brass bell cheerfully jingling at the clasp diluted the effect.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That advice is a little late, isn't it? I'd have warned you earlier of the cage but I thought you were still asleep. You've been out all day and I was starting to worry. I don't know how many of those berries you ate, but for your size, I expect it was too many."

The human just frowned and blinked slowly at him. "Where am I? Are you the one that put me in here?"

"We are in show business, my friend. Pyrite the Bold's Carnival of Carnivores. Otherwise known as Pyrite the Fearless' Fantastic Festival of Fangs, or Pyrite's Terrible Tent of Terrors, or Pyrite's Magnificent Medley of Marvelous Monsters, or whatever else title the crowbait cob's been using lately." He averted his eyes and continued, "And yes, I helped detain you. I hope you can forgive me for that, but it was no idea of mine. I tried my best to coax him into getting something different, I really did, but he'd have none of it."

The human looked to the small array of wagons where he heard the voices before and could vaguely see two figures in the window of the largest one.

"Who? The long eared fellow?"

"Cozen? No, he wants nothing to do with you. He argued more against your capture than I did, though for more foolish reasons. Showmaster Pyrite's the one you want, the fellow in the jerkin and the feathered cap. You'll get more love from a boiled cabbage heart than from his."

The human was just barely listening. With no small effort he'd managed to sit up for a better look world beyond the thorns was all flat land dressed in tawny grasses and a lavender sky bleeding into early evening. The company of wagons sat out in the open, out of place and lonely as if someone had left their belongings behind with no intention to return. The largest wagon, sun-faded and creaking, lurked a fair distance away from it all, too proud to mingle with the rest of the collection.

The structure closest to the faded wagon was a circular platform on tall metal wheels directly across from the thorn cage. A she-wolf with dull sable fur curled in a tight ball in the middle of it, the gentle rise and fall of furry sides the only sign the only sign of life in her. Similar platforms were lined out in a wide semi-circle. Next to the wolf's area a weasel chased its tail, and after that, a blindfolded rooster neighboring with what the human would later know as a diamond dog. After them was a winged tawny animal several times bigger than the wolf, unidentifiable with its back turned, grumbling low to itself every now and then. Next to the human's own cage was a large platform where a cluster of swallowtails fluttered in the air, all of them a dark iridescent green, and he wondered why they didn't fly away instead of circling around themselves in a lazy whirlwind.

The human had the only area with actual bars, but something in the depths of his liver told the man the other creatures were no less caged. He looked at how closely the thorn vines wove around each other, hardly room for a shrew to squeeze in without a nasty scratch. He remembered a nameless pigeon cooing, a little heartbeat hammering against his palm before he gripped tighter and the heartbeat stopped. He knew what happened to creatures in a cage.

Despite the heat from the bearskin, the human shivered. "I don't like this place."

"No sane creature does," sighed the blue unicorn. He glanced up at the human and smiled gently. "Take heart and don't be afraid. You'll be free soon."

"Oh, I'm not afraid." The man's voice shivered like daisies in a frosty wind.

"I'll speak with Cozen and see to it those chains are loosed some. No point in showing off a human without some devilry of hands, is there?" The pony lowered his voice to a whisper. "What was in the bag you had?"

"Um, food and clothes, mostly. A few tools and things. Why?"

"Have you something to pick a lock? Do you know how?"

The human nodded.

"Good, that—" the unicorn froze at the sound of a closing door and tried to make himself smaller in the tall grass brushing against his chest. "I've not much time. Check your supper carefully before you eat it. I will be back later, just stay there in the meantime."

The human glanced at the thorns and lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh, you know what I mean. Just don't do anything to tip the trough, sit there quietly and do... human things. And try and get some sleep, the show starts in two hours."

"I've been sleeping for over a day."

"Then fake it. They won't adjust your bonds if you're awake." The unicorn looked up and around before ducking close to the earth like a prairie dog, tightening his haunches for a sprint. "Be still until you hear from me."

"Who is it I'm waiting for?"

He waited a moment before simply saying, "Star Swirl". Then he rushed away, a little black cloud billowing and jingling across a yellow field. The human watched until it vanished behind the wagons before he lay down again.

He didn't sleep, of course. Not with the extra sleep from the past day and certainly not with the frets and worries biting at his brain. Instead the human simply closed his eyes, listened to the breeze cut through the waving grass, keeping himself at ease thinking of the closed safety of brick walls. He drilled through memories of many doors, windows, drawers, gates, boxes and all other things that bore lock or latch, and he assured himself that he still knew how to coax or force all of them open. He concentrated on the feel of chilled silver and reminded himself he knew how to free himself with the right tools.

The human did not move at the sound of several sets of hooves moving about the cage. He was still at the sound of something twisting, falling and was still when he knew that the cage was open temptingly, achingly wide. He listened quietly to the voices argue logistics of how much slack the chain ought to have and still be practical, though one voice seemed more concerned about some sort of skin contact.

But when he felt his arms moving by themselves, he could not help but risk a peek.  
Immediately he regretted it.

It wasn't as if the human was ignorant of magic. He'd heard lots of stories and read many books and seen several pictures that depicted magics of various sorts. He knew very well that there was magic in the world beyond his iron towers and asphalt knowledge did nothing to prepare him for the sight of his hands—his very own hands—floating in midair above him, the manacles and chain holding his wrists glowing a bright unearthly glow. There was no reason a chain ought to glow. There ought to be no way his limbs should move against his will. A sudden frost crept along the thin hairs of the base of his neck and there was a hitch in his throat.

The human made a very quiet mewl in the back of his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He scarcely dared to breathe as he felt his arms move independently to and fro, hearing someone huff and strain the whole time. When his arms were gently dropped back to the floorboards, heard the twisty creaks of the cage closing up and the sound of hooves fading away, the human sat up and let himself exhale.

The human's wrists were now bound in front of him and he could stretch them to shoulder length but no further. He shuddered and pulled all his limbs in close for a self-embrace until he was reassured that that his body belonged to himself again.

It was then he noticed something new in the enclosure: a little pile of stones, twigs, and grasses awkwardly held a hen impaled on a stick. Not a bad setup for a fire, considering it had been made by ponies (though the human thought if they went through the trouble of making a spit they could have at least bothered to pluck the hen). In the stony pile something caught the light and stuck out at an odd angle, a long thin bit of iron that was slightly hooked at the end.

He snatched the lockpick and gripped it so tightly it made an impression in his palm. It didn't have the clever finesse of the picks from home, not specially made for breaking into fallout shelters or lock-boxes, but from the look of these locks he suspected that it would do just fine. The silver fetter locks were somewhat different than what he was used to. Not very complicated, though it could take some time to figure out and the human suspected there wasn't much time to borrow.

The man's thoughts were interrupted by the gurgling growl of his stomach. He looked to the hen and frowned. The blue unicorn (Star Swirl, wasn't it?) was intent that any escape attempts should wait until later. First things first, then. He carefully hid the lockpick in the folds of the bearskin, resting it securely against his chest, then went to work plucking the hen.

Something in the air had changed. It was less of terror and more of anticipation. The human wondered why... and then he saw them. An assembly of ponies—all unicorns, it seemed—had gathered in the field not far from the semicircle of cages. They huddled together, a pastel rainbow of a crowd murmuring amongst themselves. A few stood to the side, where they spoke to Star Swirl, his shock of pink mane plainly visible even from a distance. He was hunched over a table concentrating on flipping a set of cards, pausing every now and again to consult some sort of map or chart, then exchanged words with the little crowd at his table.

He went back to the hen. Now fully plucked, the man saw that it really didn't have much in muscle tone or fat; very disappointing for a bird this size. It still would do for a small supper though, he'd eaten far worse before and besides it wasn't as if he was in any position to pick and choose. Now, if only the flint would cooperate. It took several tries to even get a spark, and at least ten attempts to make those sparks bloom into a healthy flame. It was during the seventh of these attempts the human heard a voice.

The donkey stood amongst the unicorn crowd calling out into the field, a sound dry, coarse and crackling. An antagonistic drought wind, eager to whip a thirsty field into a frenzied brush fire. "Move in, move in. Move in an' keep well to guard yer faint hearts an' sensibilities. The sun leaves an' the moon's not yet show 'erhelf. You an' I, we're in the in-between time now. Tis the hour when creatures of blood an' fangs stir in the shadows. The nightmares are a-wakin'. Fillies and gentlecolts, welcome to Showmaster Pyrite's Carnival of Carnivores. " The donkey bowed his head, lowering his long ears as a noblecolt might remove his hat. "I am Cozen, yer guide for th' evenin'."

The human glanced up from the fire for a look around. It seemed a poor exhibit of nightmares in his opinion, save for perhaps the hulking animal with the leather wings a few cages away. But perhaps the little herbivorous ponies were just easier to spook. As Cozen's dry voice droned on the man went back to more important matters. The little flames licked the hen, but stubbornly refused to become a proper fire. The warmth from the embers were likely enough to cook a tiny hen, if just barely, assuming he gave it enough air and turned the bird properly.

But in the distance there was something odd about Cozen's speech. Something stranger than a simple exaggeration, something that seemed to conjure nightmares from newts. "Here is th' timberwolf. Often 'eard in the depths of forests in the east singin' creaky wooden howls deep in the dark. They don't stick to any one area in particular, usually movin' from area to area in packs of fiveish or so. This one, she came upon us one moonless spring night with 'er eyes glowin' bright on us, just as they glow on you folks right now. She's all branches, twig, an' leaf. As much tree as wolf, pro'lly more. A real creature of the wood, this one."

The human frowned in confusion and stretched his neck to see through the crowd. For a moment he thought that he'd not seen that particular cage correctly. But no, it was just the same she-wolf from before standing in the cage. She blinked slowly and coughed a wet phlegmy cough. Certainly she was a fearsome animal (or would be had she been healthier) but nothing at all like what the donkey was describing.

"It will run a pony to exhaustion. Ye won't see 'er comin—blendin' in as she does with the trees an' such—until you feel fangs lodged in yer leg. She'll let ye go after she bites ye, she knows ye'll not be gettin' far. Them wooden fangs'll drive deep an' set splinters in the bone. She don't 'ave to chase very hard, ye'll run yerself ragged before too long. Ev'ry step is agony, ev'ry step drives all them little splinters in deeper and ye'll get slower an' slower until the timberwolf an' her friends don't got to do more than walk up calm as you please. 'Tis not unusual for the wolf to eat its prey alive."

The crowd huddled tighter, bubbling with nervous murmurs. One mare jumped back screaming when the sable wolf sat on her haunches and yawned with a mouth of ordinary yellow teeth. Were they all blind?

Cozen smiled with tombstone teeth. "I s'pose it could be said the timberwolf's _bark_ is worse than 'er bite."

A few ponies giggled nervously at the joke. Very few. The crowd moved on to the weasel, still dashing about in mad little circles. Every now and then it stopped to fruitlessly dig at the floor.

"The snow wasset," said the donkey "Can be found in the northern mountains huntin' little creatures of various sorts. This one in particular's a runt—only twice the length of a stallion like _you_, sir, don't touch the cage—but they're usually twice this size at least. As you can see, he's green now. Ordinarily, he'd be dozin' the summertime away in a cranberry swamp somewhere waitin' on winter. Ye see, when the air gets chilled an' the snows fall the wasset sheds its legs just as a serpent sheds skin and he dives deep in the snow banks and vanishes, for by that time he'll 'ave a coat just as white. There he'll wait until he 'ears the pit-pat of little paws and SNAP! Breeches up like a shark, great maw open t'snap up any unsuspectin' soul."

An orange filly with a messy green mane waved her hoof about. "Does it eat ponies?" she asked in a loud voice.

Cozen cast her an annoyed glance and waved a lazy hoof. "It usually prefers things that'll fit whole in 'is mouth. Lil' rabbits an' such. Wolverines are their favorite. But, yes. More than one unfortunate pony's been dragged under the snow by the likes of this one when it runs out of wolverines. Pyrite discovered this 'un layin' on the rocks, red-muzzled with a stomach swole to boulder size. All about him was the remains of some unlucky party of earth pony travelers. Naught but a pile of hooves an' scarves."

The weasel reached it sinewy body around to gnaw a flea on its haunch. It was hardly big enough to be a scarf itself. Not even a good pair of mittens.

"'Course the good news is a fat snow wasset's a slow snow wasset. If not for them earth ponies Pyrite might never 'ave caught it and you fine folks would've lost a grand opportunity to see him for yerselves. Always a use for an earther, eh?"

This time more than a few laughed at the joke and Cozen smiled.

An ember popped and the human suddenly remembered his fire. He huffed and puffed and blew it, teasing the grasses to persuade the flames to live just a little longer. Too much time wasted wondering about ponies and too little on important things. He carefully felt the sides of the hen; it wouldn't be long now, but it was cooking a little uneven. The man adjusted the spit carefully, paying attention to his own matters, but still listening to the donkey's brushfire voice.

"The cockatrice. Body of a serpent, head of a chicken, but all of him foul. With but a cold stare he petrifies, so for your safety an' mine he wears a blindfold over them bewitchin' eyes. Good news for us, but it's no comfort to his little friend, that's for sure."

Cozen paused to clear his throat. "Kin of the mountain, Crunch the Rockdog and he's a rarity bein' only Rockdog that ever was. Like 'is evil little feathered fiend of a friend he's a petrifying beast, though for our good fortune tis by touch an not sight. Look fer yerself, the very floor he stands on is granite from the touch of them paws. Dragons turn to statues, forests become barren wastelands. He hates softness, both in texture and in character. The sight of fluff or the scent of love drives him into a rampage, barrelin' all over up an' down the place turnin' everything he spies to granite. Mayhap he's only jealous. No heart of his own, ye see. Th' ol' mountain what sired Crunch made a heart fer him—a fire ruby—and once upon a time it rested right there in the collar 'anging from his neck."

The man looked up a moment, making sure to keep the spit turning. A rooster sat looking a little silly with a spotted blindfold around its head. A young doggish creature with an ape-like build and skin like an elephant sat next to it. He blinked at the unicorns with eyes bright and green as a traffic light, lacking anything even close to hatred in them. A little blue tongue lolled out in the night air. It moved its mouth at the crowd, but no sound came out.

"Crunch and the cockatrice: brothers of boulder, pals in petrification." Cozen seemed to take more time to stretch out the Rockdog's speech. When he led the crowd to the fifth animal his long ears stretched flat out behind his head. The nervous air was contagious, moving along the unicorns in waves of wide darting eyes, rapid hearts, and frightened nickers.

"The manticore." The donkey's voice wavered, a flame petering out under a cold breeze. "It prowls the dark woodland of the Unicorn Kingdom, stalks the laborious villages of the Earth Pony Nation, and has even been known to feast in lower clouds of the Pegasus Hegemony in search of prey."

"The... the clouds?" asked a mare. "How?"

"Well, just see fer yerself, mum! Take a look at them strong dragonish wings. Not strong enough to get that bulk any long distance but perfect for a surprise assault on low fliers. He can jump the whole length of this carnival here, can propel himself with his wings even farther. No trouble for that paw to throw a pegasus down." Cozen shuddered. "No trouble at all. It likes the ground better, though. Less effort. Claws are longer than your horn and impossible sharp. Behold the tail, long as the manticore's whole body and if the fangs or claws don' end you that tail will. Trust old Cozen, between the claws an' tail you'll be wantin' the claws."

The human glanced up, half expecting to see a shabby catamount with thinning fur, one tooth, and an ear infection. But to his amazement, every word the donkey spoke was true. Undoubtedly, absolutely, horribly true. A lion of incredible size crouched before the donkey and his unicorn herd, lashing a long, deadly scorpion tail, the spur on the end like a dollop of blood dripping in the air. The leathery wings snapped pointlessly in the air and the human could feel the rumbles from the manticore's throat soak through skin and into the marrow of his bones. For a short moment he was a little grateful of the thorn cage.

In a golden blur the creature threw itself at the frightened crowd, only to ricochet against the air and was thrown back in a thundering crash. He stood a moment later with nothing to show for the effort but a squashed nose and rumpled whiskers sticking out of his face. The area around the manticore took on a dull silvery sheen, a glistening soap bubble with the familiar silver-white aura the man saw before on the chains. A barrier. The other predators must have had similar bubbles around them as well, invisible until reality bumped against it. In the cage next door the butterflies fluttering in midair, pressed against the sky but unable to fly away. The human watched them and blinked in wonder. Yet, his own cage wasn't invisible at all but painfully, physically real. He wondered why.

The audience shrieked and cowered as the manticore snarled and clawed at the air. Great golden eyes held the crowd captive. The crowd took a collective step back. But Cozen calmly stood where he was and said, "Calm down folks, that barrier's held against meaner creatures than him. But if that's not enough t'calm yer soul, then look! Look above us."

They looked. There, atop the roof of the tallest wagon, stood the taut figure of a unicorn with all the softness of a spur angled downward and looming like a gargoyle. From a distance he was difficult to make out, excepting for the brilliant copper of his coat, the feathered cap tilted on the side of his head and the black eye patch that seemed to consume half his face. The array of lanterns surrounding him threw a shadow across the audience, the donkey, and the great menagerie of predators. A single green eye stared down and deep at all of them.

"Pyrite the Bold, our Showmaster. The breaker of beasts when nopony dares," Cozen said. "So long as he is with us we'll come to no harm. In this place only creatures long in tooth and dark of hearts need fear. Be thankful he guards us, for the creatures that await us are worst of all."

The human saw the sharp spike of Pyrite's horn bathed in a familiar silver-white glow and instinctively drew in his arms. He turned his eyes away to more a welcome sight of embers under a chicken.

Putting distance between himself and the manticore, confidence swelled back into Cozen's voice. "The stratadon, mayhap the oldest of any monster here. Forged by th' bitter cold darkness and birthed from hatred. Ever loyal servant to Tirek, the Master of Darkness hisself. The mighty reptile what dragged away at least a third of ponies from the ancestral Dream Valley across the dark skies—for his very presence frightened the unicorns so badly that they dropped the sun—to his home, the dreadful Castle Midnight. To untrained eyes the old thing looks somethin' like a dragon, but he's far littler and stupider than the likes of them. I'd be more eager to meet a dragon atop a mountain though, if ye want to know to truth. A dragon 'art may be swathed in flames but it's still made of blood and flesh just like us. But the stratadon? Tis all hollow in that scaly chest, nothin' but shadows of shadows an' blackness."

Alright, that was just ridiculous.  
The human could understand the business with the wolf or maybe even the rooster, those things were at least resembled their descriptions, but there was just no way anyone could mistake that swarm of butterflies for...

And then he looked. Just as he expected there were five and twenty swallowtails in the air, a dandelion inspired more fear than they. But he noticed the awestruck faces of the audience clinging together in the night ready to faint or flee in sheer terror and looked again. For half a heartbeat, perhaps through his eyelashes when he blinked, the human saw it.

A great wyrm of hard scales and fire colder than cold. Everything around it, everything about it was dark, dark, dark and the man was suddenly convinced the sun would never rise and the night would go on forever. A long serpentine neck stretched to a sky suddenly bereft of stars and screeched like iron towers collapsing into themselves. The human saw the translucent silver bubble of a cage and in the corner of his eye, a forgotten subsection of his heart he saw the wolf made of wood, a great green wasset, the stony hulk of the Rockdog. He saw them all.

Then he blinked and the world was as it had always been. The human saw a cluster of ponies ready to eat their own tongues in fright, a donkey, and a cluster of green swallowtails twisting in the empty air. He waited to see if it would happen again, but it never did. He shook off the shadow of the stratadon and tended to his supper.

At the foot of the cage, the donkey was shuffling his hooves. "Friends, ol' Cozen owes you and apology. We advertised an Ursa Minor earlier and a pair cockatrice instead of just one. I'm sorry to say that's no longer true. Tisn't any fault of ours! We 'ad both these creatures but half a fortnight ago - ask around the Kingdom, they'll affirm it I bet – but y'see friends, we had a…incident."

The hen was finally finished - as finished as he could manage with such a weak fire - with the skin cooked golden as the rising sun and twice as welcome.

"'Ere's a tale for you: that half fortnight ago, the Showmaster played a game of backgammon with our young fortune teller with the silly beard with yours truly waitin' to play the winner—t'was Pyrite, if ye want to know—when we all 'erd a calamity of roars and screaming."

The trifling meat was rough and dryer than sarcasm, but the smell of it woke the man's stomach and made him instantly forgive any and all faults of the hen. This was a beautiful, glorious hen, finest in the world.

"Well, we all went in a mad dash t'see the cause and wouldn't ye know somethin' had raided our cages. Yes, _these _very cages, preyin' upon our monsters as if they were no more than a bunch of helpless piglets in a pen. T'was with no small amount of fortune and bravery from the Showmaster we stopped the rampage and captured it."

The hunger he'd ignored all day threatened to gnaw right through him when the soothing warmth of the bird blossomed in his cheeks. The human didn't think anything could have stolen his attention.

"Remember this night, friends. For the first time in eons, witness the most dangerous being to ever walk the earth. Fillies and gentlecolts: the contradiction creature!"

The familiar phrase caught his ear, somehow rising above through the blissful call of food. The human looked up as he tore off a second hen leg, then flinched as though stuck. They had snuck upon him with quiet footsteps hidden behind overzealous donkey brays and snapping of hen bones.

A long row of unicorns crowded shoulder to shoulder around the cage of black thorns. The light from the dying fire gave the rainbow of coats the same slight reddish tinge, and with the tight bars partially blocking his view it was hard to tell when one pony stopped and another began. Except for their many many many many eyes. Their already huge eyes more enormous with awe and terror filling them up.

The human had never seen such a number of any sapient creatures before—the greatest number before now was a party of griffin fledglings that stopped to rest in the iron bones of a tower some years ago, and even then there were only six of them and a fair distance away. He'd certainly never seen this many ponies before and until now Star Swirl was the only pony he'd seen up close.

There couldn't have been more than thirty ponies, but they might as well have numbered in thousands. A universe of staring eyes met him at all sides, the chain around his neck suddenly felt tighter, the thorns around him crept closer. He wanted to move away to the back of his cage, but the eyes waited for him there as well. Instead, he tried to shrink into his bearskin, longing for his cloak, and tried to concentrate on his supper.

"The Ursa Minor and the cockatrice are still here... in a way," croaked Cozen's brushfire voice somewhere outside the unending wall of eyes. "Ye can see the fur peeled off the bones of the Ursa's shoulders now cloakin' around 'im. No fur of his own, of course. Has to steal them from other creatures, it's death what keeps that one warm. As for the cockatrice, well... it's halfway here at least."

The human spared a glance to the broken rib cage jutting out of the hen.

"But why would Pyrite help him burn it?" asked a mare's voice.

"Pyrite's many things, but a firemaker's not one of 'em. The creature called up that flame all on 'is own this very night. From the look of his it's cowerin' in the rocks like that, it's plenty frightened too. Can't say I blame it. The other beasts here, they're only wantin' a simple meal or they're goin' by some basic want or instinct they can't much 'elp. Ah, but this one. This one's never satisfied. It kills one thing and then it kills again, and it just goes on killing even after it stops bein' hungry. Tis slower than the timberwolf or manticore, but if ye manage to outrun a timberwolf t'willl eventually see sense and go home. But once the contradiction creature sets those tiny eyes on you they'll never forget. It doesn't care if it's stilted legs got to go over mountains or boat across oceans, sometimes callin' in the aid of other predators t'help track you down. They can bend other predators to their will and their alliance with wolves are th' stuff of legend. When it runs out of things to hunt, the contradiction creature is known to turn upon its own kind. How awful, the only one that murder one of your own, can you possibly imagine?"

The mare from before spoke up again, "But what about the griffon conflict in the purple mountains? And don't dragons fight to the death sometimes? And come to think of it, when the Hegemony started hovering of the Earth Pony Nation weren't there reports of—"

"Completely different things and I'll _thank_ the audience for holding questions until after the tour. Perhaps this creature has a reason, some backwards bit of monster logic that calls for blood but more often 'tis for no reason at all. It looks somethin' slight compared to the might of the manticore, but make no mistake, it—"

"I think it's got tears in its eyes." It was the orange filly that asked earlier about snow wassets.

The donkey's speech stumbled for a moment. "It does?"

_I _**_do_**_? _

The human rubbed an eye and to his surprise his hand came away wet. When did that start happening? The firelight must have been bothering his eyes. Surely it was nothing more. Regardless, his cheeks burned as he felt the unending mass of eyes stronger than ever before. The human took his hen and turned to face the other way. But of course there were eyes there, too. There was nowhere to go.

Cozen cleared his throat. "Don't be foolish, child. Above all else the contradiction creature's known for cunning. It knew how to kill an Ursa Minor, I'd not be surprised if it knew how to coax the 'art of a foolish young filly that like to interrupt. Besides, if you were a lord of the world caught by 'is own prey you'd have tears of frustration too."

The filly wrinkled her nose like an upset blanket and stared at the human as if she was going to argue further. But she didn't.

"'Tis unknown," said a somewhat rumpled donkey, "How many of these are left in the world. Last report was a hundred years ago at least, someplace near the griffin territories. Might be none at all roamin' the world now that this one lives with us. Folks, let's hope so."

With that, the show was over. The human's fire had gone out and with the orange tint gone the colors of the unicorns' coats returned and amorphous mass of ponies became individuals once more. They wandered off in sets of twos and threes back into the fields with a greater sense of dangers waiting for them out in the night. The orange filly was the last to leave. She sat on her haunches watching him quietly through a veil of stringy green mane, looking more carrot than pony.

The human ate the rest of his meal in relative peace. The creeping ordeal of the carnival still loomed over him and robbed the hen of the satisfaction it had before. The meat was cold and tough and only the burned parts had any taste at all.

The filly watched until he was finished. Then she stood and walked away by herself.

As the human began putting aside the chicken bones in a farther corner of the cage, he heard the sound of hooves and for a moment thought the little one had returned. He knew better than that even before he looked up.

Pyrite and the human watched each other through the bars for a few moments; both parties guarding their airs close to them as if players in game of cards.

The unicorn gave a polite nod of the head. "Evening. Did you enjoy your cockatrice dinner?"

"I've had better," the man said evenly. "Would have been nice to have more time to cook it and you didn't give me a very strong flame, either. And the hen was gamey."

"So sorry to hear that. I'll be sure to accommodate you better next time if you agree to be better behaved."

The human blinked and looked about him, as if he could find the point he'd missed flying in the open air. "Pardon me?"

"Just what was that supposed to be, earlier? That melodramatic business with the tears? 'Tis fortunate old Cozen's faster with his wits than his legs or the whole act would have gone sour." Pyrite shrugged his bony shoulders with a huff. "But I can understand first night jitters, I suppose. I shall find it in my heart forgive you."

The human's mouth slowly opened to respond, but then closed when it could find nothing reasonable to say. Instead, he shrugged innocently and shifted position so that his thin lock pick was better hidden in the folds of bear skin. The last thing he needed was for it to slip out.

The copper unicorn smiled without mirth and passively shook his head. A strict father ashamed of his rebellious son's wild ways and outlandish outfits, but positive he could get him back on the righteous path. "For a supposed lord of the world, you're not very smart. What could you possibly have been thinking? Wandering out into the world by yourself where any random rockslide or scheduled ice storm or marauding hydra could kill you? A rare, breakable thing like yourself should have stayed cloistered up where you were and you know it. So you can just stop giving me that woebegone face you've been putting on this instant. It's your own fault you got caught, so just live with it."

"I cannot stay here," the human replied, trying to ignore the fair point about staying in his city. "I was searching for something when you picked me up. I cannot find it if you keep me here. I'm needed by someone... or something. I think."

Pyrite's smirk eased on his face like a weasel winding out of a tunnel. "Oh, you're quite right on that point. Indeed, you are desperately needed. I have been waiting for something like you for a very long time, human. Does your heart not gaily leap to know you are so useful?"

The chains clinked against each other as the man fidgeted against them and quietly wondered to himself what a smug unicorn's throat would feel like in his hands.

"Ah, yes!" The candlelight danced in Pyrite's one green eye. He did a little excited stamp with a fore hoof. "Yes, yes, _yes_! There it is! That's exactly the look I was waiting on. Oh, it's even better than I imagined! If only you'd had it while there was still a crowd. Such ferocity, such hard and pitiless determination! Truly, truly the paragon of predators. I'll bet there is no end to the horrible things you imagine doing to me, am I right? One of those cruel steel knives carving into my belly, or perhaps an arrow sticking out of my eye socket? Perhaps you can already hear the crunch of my skull under your boot. Not that you have boots or arrows or knifes, nor shall you ever. It's still a pleasant thought though, isn't it?"

Pyrite did a little jig in the grass as if he were a colt with a new toy. Behind the wall of thorns, the human's previous ire quickly congealed into nausea.

Wishing to change the subject from bloodthirsty fantasies, he offered, "You know, I'm really not that good of a catch. Why not something fiercer? You could catch yourself a dragon or a big colony of attercop. I would imagine a web filled with dozens of hissing attercop with shining little red eyes would be much more impressive than I." His manacled hands gestured apathetically. "All I've to offer is a cross face and a half eaten, err… 'cockatrice'. I'm not much. Honestly, I'm not. Only a slender little thing who never killed anything meaner than a drooling coyote with an attitude problem."

Pyrite squinted at him for a moment, then blinked in disbelief. "You're serious. You're truly _are_ serious." When the star of his show only frowned in confusion, the unicorn came closer. The thorns were a sneeze away from putting out his other eye. He was close enough for the human to notice the strange mark on his flank: three links of chain that seemed to have no beginning or end, twisting into each other forever and always.

"You really don't know, do you? You honestly have no idea what you are capable of, even with your satchel full of iron teeth." He made an odd sound, something between the shadow of a sigh and the echo of laugh. "Well, no matter. You'll remember yourself in time, I'll be sure to see to that. It wouldn't be the first time Pyrite the Bold dealt with carnivores stingy with their claws."

The human spared a glance toward the growling manticore's transparent cage. For the first time he noticed how sharply its ribs poked out. The lines of faded scars along its back. The burn patches of missing fur.

Pyrite's copper coat shone penny bright. "Yes, there was a time once when the manticore also looked at me with sad eyes and gave off that same irritating doleful look. Didn't take that much to turn her around, though. Perhaps a month at most."

The Showmaster casually lifted an apple with a silver glow of magic and shone it against his jerkin. "Now, _you_. You, with your famous reputation for being stubborn, will no doubt be more work. At least thrice the time the manticore took, I'm sure."

He bit into the red gala. Spurts of apple juice dotted the man's cage. "But once Cozen gets over worrying about fur loss, we can turn you around, I'm sure of it. Soon your eyes will strike fear into the hearts of mares, just as if the Roc itself bore down on them. Foals will wake at the midnight hour clutching their blankets from nightmares of you. You'll be famous and won't that be simply delightful?"

The human leaned forward, ignoring the chain digging in his neck and sharp pricks against his skin. "The roc? Do you mean the White Roc?"

Pyrite chewed the last of his apple and swiveled an ear. "Ah, you're familiar with General Yarak's famed roc. Then surely you also know how fortunate you are to travel with a cultured unicorn of the world, rather than stuck with a mad old brute of a pegasus."

"Do you perhaps know where I can find it? Please?"

Pyrite only ignored him.

After a moment of thought the man offered, "You know, there are better things a cultured unicorn of the world could do with his talents."

"Oh?" Pyrite's voice had suddenly become dangerously soft. The breeze had frightened a candle flame away. "What would _you_ propose I ought to do with my talents, then?"

"You could…" the human paused.

Nothing good could come of whatever he said next. His mouth contradicted his sense and spoke anyway. "You could treat your creatures better than this. A healthy wolf must make for a more frightening timberwolf than an ill one. Besides, I always heard that the little ponies were supposed to care for their fellow creatures. You could let me go. I don't belong here, and I know that you know it. It may be wise to release that poor manticore, too. Or feed the poor thing more often at the very least. Really, Pyrite, have you no—"

The human's voice was crushed out of him as the chains suddenly yanked him to the back of the cage. The floorboards rattled as he crashed on top of them.

Over the man's strangled coughing Pyrite's voice rose to a shout. "Arrogant beast, how **dare** you  
presume to tell me what I ought or ought not do! Have you any notion of what I've been through to get here? _Had_ I better prospects, do you think I would be trudging through the backwoods of the Kingdom with a filthy donkey, a hollow horn, and sideshow full of blunt fangs and empty threats? I ought to be in the court entertaining King Mohs and his nobles! I—"

The Showmaster paused to steady his breath. He magically brushed back the frazzled strands of yellow mane back into place. The candlelight dared to come out of hiding.

The coughing man tried to sit up, but a glowing chain slammed him back down and held him there. "Oh, no. You can just stay down there. I don't care if I crush your larynx, the show doesn't require you to speak. Made all the better for it, in fact."

Pyrite pawed the dirt and snorted. "You know what you are? Selfish. You are a selfish, inconsiderate cadge. You're the greatest attraction this carnival has seen in years. Tonight alone I made more than I have in the past two weeks, and that's even with little time to promote and with you spiting me with your stupid, frightened eyes. Think of how much I'll make in a month! Think of your young hollow friend and the softer bed he could afford with all the extra bits you'll rake in. Didn't even consider that, did you? No, do _not _answer that question, it was rhetorical.  
"Wanting to leave, the very idea! Wanting to leave even after I gave you food and shelter, even after I spoke to you kindly and loosed your fetters. And for what? To get your idiot self impaled on the talons of Yarak's roc. I've never seen such thanklessness! And suggesting I let up on the manticore, too! Human, do you _want_ me to end up in the poorhouse? Selfish, selfish, selfish, _selfish_!"

With that, Pyrite stuck his nose in the air and stomped off. Almost as an afterthought the thorn cage suddenly closed in on itself, shrinking by a foot.

A few wagons away the little diamond dog tossed restlessly in his sleep. The ill she-wolf lapped at her water and the rooster pecked blindly at his corn. The weasel chattered to himself and wound itself up in tight pointless circles. Five and twenty swallowtails beat their fierce stratadon wings. The manticore rumbled deep in the caverns of her stomach and stared into the night. The human curled his legs in to keep the thorns from pricking his feet and rubbed his bruised, aching throat.

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	4. Silver Bubbles, Red Dawn

The silver fetters proved more difficult than the human expected. It wasn't so much the locks themselves, but a case of maneuvering the pick. The fat lock dangling on his neck came first and was by far the hardest. There was no way to tell for certain, but it had taken at least an hour to work, likely more. His hands only could only move so far in clinking chains, and he had to keep blindly feeling about at the lock resting upon his collarbone to find a good angle for the pick. More than once the iron lock pick slipped or he prodded too hard, spinning the lock out of place.

It would have been easier to simply undo his manacles first so he at least more freedom of movement, but _that_lock had to go first. It had to. He poked and prodded and tweaked and coaxed and cursed until there was a faint click — no louder than a beetle's footstep — a sound so sweet he wanted to sob at the beauty of it. The man took a second to rub his chafed neck with a new appreciation for the feel of the air on his skin, then retrieved the lock pick and went back to work.

Star Swirl arrived shortly after the manacle locks — exasperating to open with just one hand — were finished. He trotted along in a swish of black silk and jingling brass bells, with bright eyes and spirit in his step. There were three jingles for every hoof's step, the bag he carried banged against his rump with a clatter, and by the time he got to the human's cage all the animals were awake. One by one they raised their heads as he passed in a happy racket and stared as he went by, save for the manticore who'd already been awake. The little blue unicorn was blessed sight but the fellow had all the stealth of bulldozers barreling though a bedroom.

"I know, I know, I should have arrived hours ago, I'm sorry. If it wasn't rewriting Cozen's script it was talking down the Showmaster. Sun and stars above us, was he in a state! I'm amazed I managed getting him to sleep at all the way he carried on. What in the heavens' name did you—" Then Star Swirl saw the human's neck.

"I thought maybe I could appeal to his better nature," the human said in a scraggly voice. "I'm sorry, I should have taken your advice."

"Oh, don't... don't worry about it. Does that hurt?"

"Less than before. But if Pyrite sleeps, what about the donkey?"

"Oh, I told Cozen I saw a thin patch in the base of his mane. He'll be fretting at the mirror all night trying to find it and when he finds nothing he'll have convinced himself the patch is there and look even harder," explained Star Swirl not a little proudly. "Cozen's got the sense to know you ought not be here but not enough to know why. He's convinced whatever malady made all your hair fall out is contagious."

The human looked down at his hands working the locks, busy, brown, and furless. He felt at the bearskin and asked, "Those unicorns wouldn't have known what I was without the wonder of the Ursa skin, would they? The same way those swallowtails made up a stratadon."

"Personally, I'd have left you as you were. The fires evidence enough to prove a human, but I can understand using the bearskin for a bit of extra assurance. Some ponies need a more than a simple illusion to take a butterfly for a stratadon just as they need a chilling tale, a false Ursa skin and a real human's fire to see the human."

The human's dark eyes darted from the fetter locks and peered at him through the thorns. "But you didn't."

In the curved shadows of the bars the unicorn smiled at him, soft and sure and a little sad. "No. I didn't. I know you as surely as any constellation in the sky. I could forget myself and my kingdom and my lineage and if I knew absolutely nothing else I would still know you. I don't understand how anypony can't feel it, the complete absence of magic around you. It's like... a tear in the universe." After a moment of silence he said, "Old Pyrite might be dreaming of your old world horrors, but I know you're more than some fearsome predator. I know there is more power in those paws than their flat little claws."

"Then will you help me get out?"

Star Swirl looked again at the necklace of little purple tracks above the human's collarbone. "Oh, absolutely." He dropped the human's bag on the grass, pulled back his lips and began chewing into the thorns.

The man watched uncomfortably before going back to the fetters. Before long there was a soft click and the fourth lock fell away. One fetter left to go, and then there wasn't much left to do than just watch, wait, and wince as Star Swirl's teeth cut through the rows of thorns.

After some time he wondered, "Do you really need to get through like that? Isn't there a less painful way to get me out?"

The unicorn spat out a few thorns and ran his tongue along the edge of his mouth. His blue muzzle was already speckled with red. "There is. Your cage is held together at the top, fastened with a simple little latch. With a simple lift the bars open and fall away like a blossoming flower. If I had wings you'd have been free a long time ago." He adjusted his position to find a less thorny vine, which was about as fruitful as finding a less damp part of the sea.

"But couldn't you just magically undo the lock? The same way Pyrite moved the chains and the apple he ate?"

Star Swirl didn't answer him, just spat out more thorns and looked away. His ears blushed and flattened against his head; the eager wonder in his eyes had run away and hidden someplace secret.

The human frowned, wondering if he had said something wrong. He wanted to ask about it but then looked up to see the moon in descent, low and white in the dark grey sea of sky with the promise of dawn fast on its heels. The last fetter lock had been shoddily fastened and fell away with barely a poke, easy and anticlimactic. He pushed the silver piles of metal to a far corner of the cage where he wouldn't have to look at them anymore.

He moved closer to where Star Swirl was tearing at the thorns. Every bite from his flat teeth came harder, faster, more determined as the both of them felt the seconds snowball into precious, agonizing minutes

There was now a long scar of open air running along bottom getting wider and wider and the human started to fidget, for he could already feel the grass under his feet. Star Swirl spat out a mass of red and black thorns every few seconds but it was the only pause he gave before diving back in, looking more like a wild carnivore of the carnival digging into the soft belly of a rabbit than a pony.

Finally he reared up and with a fierce tug, ripped away a long, long black vine from the structure as if pulling loose thread from a sweater. The scar in the cage had become a wide gaping wound of yellow field and open air.

Star Swirl stepped back with a sigh, spitting out the last mouthful of thorns and rubbing his muzzle against his cape. His spritely pink beard had turned the soft crimson of the roses decorating the cage. "Come down, human. You are freed."

The human ducked under the hole, careful to mind the vines, and stepped back into the world. He wobbled in an awkward little dance as his bare feet searched for a patch of grass without any thorns in it. Then he stretched, delighting in his ability to do so, and his bones made a sound like snapping branches.

Star Swirl stepped back from the human, staring up with wide dark eyes. "Oh," he said in a hushed voice. "I didn't think you'd be so... big. I mean in the cage, it was different but now..."

The man leaned down, grabbing his grey bag then rolling it over his shoulder in one swift motion, and for a small moment he and the unicorn were at eye level again. "But I'm no different than before," said the voice just above Star Swirl's head. "Just standing out here instead of sitting in there."

The gangly fortune teller fidgeted in his cape, unsure of how to argue or articulate how the ominous atmosphere of the predator menagerie slowly dripped and thawed away in the human's presence. How the little rip in the universe seemed to get a little bigger by the second. Star Swirl flicked his tail and looked at the cage next to them. The silver sheen was paler; the roaring stratadon was still there but the scales were stretched thin over a skeleton of fluttering swallowtails.

The human was watching them too. "I don't know how I ever mistook these things for anything else. It was odd… I saw them for half a moment just as they were described. Does this place look that way to you all the time?"

"Not exactly. I've worked under Pyrite for some time, so I know better. I often see cockatrice or timberwolves in the corner of my eye but they melt back into their true form a moment after. It comes and goes. I am also not a mess of fright ready to believe what any carnival barker wants me to helps quite bit in that regard. But I'm not surprised that of all the creatures you saw the stratadon. It's been with the carnival for a very long time, before all the others, even before Cozen and I. It's a legitimate spell, not just a simple illusion."

The unicorn squinted at what was once a tunnel of gnashing teeth, now an outline of quivering butterfly antennae. "The Lord of Midnight Castle made his stratadon the same way, though old Pyrite could only summon up a shadow of the original spell, if you'll excuse the term. He cannot truly change a creature into something it is not the way Tirek did. Nopony can. Given that, 'tis an impressive feat — even the butterflies are convinced. Perhaps them most of all."

Star Swirl followed the human as he stalked about the cage, watching with a quietly thoughtful expression. The silver barrier thinned away the closer the man came to it until it was no more visible than a spider web, making shaking ripples through the air. The man scratched his fuzzy chin in a curious way, and then casually reached out to touch with a thin finger.

The barrier popped like a soap bubble. Five and twenty butterflies sailed into the night in a single emerald pulsating wave. Star Swirl watched it rise up and up before they dove down at him in a fierce stoop, beating their angry green wings when they landed on his flank and shoulders, furious and wondering why they could not carry this insolent unicorn away in their claws.

"Little ones, your master was dead and gone long before your grandmothers' grandmothers laid their eggs," he chuckled. "You wouldn't even have anywhere to take me. Go find some nice buttercups to eat instead before you hurt yourselves."

The swallowtails paid him no mind but continued to bash their frail little bodies against him. A swish of his tail or shake of shoulders would send them away for a short time before a few came back. Star Swirl hoped they would give up eventually; it was difficult enough getting ponies to take him serious without a horde of butterflies making things worse.

He was so preoccupied with the butterflies almost didn't notice the wolf running past him. He stepped out of the way as she loped into the distance, apparently too busy coughing to notice him. A white ribbon of a weasel cut through the grass not far behind her.

The human stood in the middle of the carnival awkwardly holding a red riot of feathers and claws away from his face and very much regretting the decision to pick up the rooster. It was with no small amount of juggling and luck the blindfold finally came off. The rooster pecked the offending hand for the trouble before strutting with his beak in the air.

The diamond dog was the only one that hadn't run away when his bubble popped. He crouched near the stony edge of its platform pacing back and forth, longingly staring at the ground so close yet so far away from stubby legs unused to walking any farther than ten steps. He cringed under the human's shadow, as he often did in new encounters, and couldn't seem to decide whether to shut his eyes or stare at the open field where the others had long escaped. When the man touched him they both flinched. His hand cradled the dog's great clunky paw as if it were a baby bird, and waited patiently for the paw to stop shaking. The paw wrapped around his fingers and squeezed.

For the first time that night the human smiled. He had forgotten what it felt like to hold someone's hand.

Slowly, gently, the diamond dog was lifted up by his hulking sturdy arms and helped down into the tawny grass. He looked up and the human was surprised to discover the keen awareness in the chartreuse eyes, just like the ponies held in theirs. The dog stood there for while looking at him, holding his hand in the only true way to hold a hand: firm, gentle, with acres of trust. When the hand became limp he let it go, watching it go away from him and into the human's pocket. The diamond dog tried to say something, not with barks or whimpers as the man half expected, but clearly forming words. Yet the only sound was the opening and closing of his jaw.

There was a pale scar running along the base of his throat, barely visible under a red collar. The human stared at it as Pyrite's words lingered with him. _The show doesn't require you to speak. _His expression hardened.

The diamond dog walked a small distance, turned to the human and waved. He wagged a stubby tail when the human waved back. Then with strong shovel-like paws he tore into the ground in a blur of dirt and dust and soon a tunnel among upturned earth was all that was left.

The human looked over his shoulder at the last occupied cage. The manticore stared back at him.

Her eyes had been on him since the human picked the first lock, but only now did they draw him in, two ghost lights bright in the dark. The thin cage rumbled, rolling along the ground, soaking into the soles of his feet. A golden mass of muscles and patchy fur and years and years of hunger towered over him, though the manticore could not have been more than half a foot taller than he. A scruff of ruddy fur framed the creature's face, short and wispy, more dandelion fluff than a mighty swath of mane. The scorpion tail dragged across the floor, the death-filled tip twitching, the only part of the manticore that moved. The man blinked at it slowly with the calm of a hurricane eye.

Somewhere behind him a voice yelped as loud as it dared and hooves took flight. The human turned just in time to see Star Swirl skid to a stop in a little explosion of gritty dust cloud a foot or so away. The unicorn with blood in his beard dared not come closer, but stamped at the ground, trotting anxiously back and forth. "What are you _doing_?" he hissed, knowing full well what the human was doing. "Have you any idea what time it is? We need to go."

He was right, of course. Dawn was already pushing through the delicate safety of the dark. The sun was cozied up in a wooly coat of grey clouds, peering out under a cumulus hood. It had caught up to them quietly, tiptoeing through the butterfly wings besieging Star Swirl, leaking through interlocked fingers and diamond dog paws. There was no more reason to stay. There was also no way to outrun a manticore and though his knives were safely back in his possession, the human knew he could not outfight a manticore either.

He could have left then.

He should have left then.

But those ribs.

Those ribs and that bony spine and those scars stretched on the fur in a map of misery. The human could hear the echo of a cavernous stomach above the rumblings in its throat. He wondered was once a time when the manticore cowered before a silver glow, before the light in her eyes turned harsh and unforgiving.

The human could not let the manticore go, it was starving. The human had to let the manticore go, she was starving. Starving with a sapling of a man and a little blue unicorn with a bloody beard standing before her.

"You can't." Star Swirl inched closer to nose at the human's leg. "It will kill us both."

The human just blinked at him, then moved closer to the manticore and reached out an arm.

"You can't! What is the point of escape if only to be torn apart in a maw of teeth not an hour later? I don't know where you came from but I know you must have come from very far away and I know there is a very good chance you are the only one of your kind left. The last human in the world would have come and endured all this way only to die pointlessly. You _can't_."

After a moment the man ran a hand through the thick curls of his hair and looked back at him with a sigh. "The point," he said "is knowing that little grey dog's had perhaps the first kind touch in his life and the sick wolf loped away to spend its last days in peace. And then this manticore is left here alone, hungry and scared."

Star Swirl just stamped at the dust again as his blood screamed for him to run. He backed a little closer and leaned against the human, partly in hope of shoving the legs into motion and partly to keep himself from collapsing with fright. He tried not to look at the manticore's ears twitching at every jingle from the dinner bell on his cape.

Over the manticore's thunder the human whispered, "Be still."

"You've a plan for leaving this place uneaten, yes? Yes?"

"Trust me," the human said. Which did not answer to the question at all.

The manticore's cage did not vanish with a pop. When his fingers touched it the film of translucent silver shimmered and the membrane stretched under his skin. The bubble hadn't broken on contact, but it still had all the resistance of a wet paper. A nose and a row of fangs breathed fog against it.

The human placed his free hand on Star Swirl's shoulder. At the manticore he said, or perhaps only thought, "I would greatly appreciate it if you did not eat us."

And he pushed through. The silver bubble quivered and collapsed, folding inside itself gentle and inconsequential as scarves falling from a shelf.

The manticore tensed every muscle she had and roared. Ponies twenty miles away felt in in their hooves. The air snapped under the leather wings as a mass of fur, fangs, claws, and venom tore into the dawn. An empty platform flipped over, tumbling into the grass as a lashing tail struck it.  
A blue and pink tumble of unicorn who'd quite forgotten where he was ran blindly into the human, bowling them both over as the manticore sailed over both of them.

"It missed?"

"No. It wasn't aiming for us."

In the half second between the cage collapsing and the awful roar, a door slammed and there was a familiar voice, adder low and thick with loss.

"You wretched hollow horn."

Star Swirl, unraveling himself from a tangle of arms, legs, and cape, flinched at the sound.

The dawn siphoned out the bluster in Pyrite's voice, in the dim sunlight his presence shrank like a damp woolen sweater. The eye patch had been left in the wagon, along with his jerkin and a donkey too sensible to step outdoors. One lonely, lost green eye stared at them beside two long scars stretching across his face like abandoned train tracks.

The human saw him in the gap of space between the rising predator and the empty field before the unicorn crumbled under the weight of the manticore. He blinked at both of them impassively and turned to Star Swirl, lying beside him in the grass, staring straight ahead and looking very much like a small rabbit under headlights.

The man stood slowly, with a hand under the collar of unicorn's cape to help him back on his hooves. When they were both standing the hand moved to his withers and grasped him. Star Swirl was a little startled at how soft his touch was, despite the strong grip.

"Walk with me," the human said in a low voice. "Slowly. Try not to look. Pretend it's not there."

"But—" They had begun moving, though the young unicorn could not imagine how his petrified legs managed it.

"The manticore is... distracted, but at the sound of running prey she may give chase. So do not behave as prey. Walk with me, Star Swirl and think about something else. Perhaps think of how nice it is to see sunshine after a thunderstorm or flower blossoms on a tree or think of your star charts. Think of a song, or better yet, sing one quietly. Think of something. Don't think about it."

There was an awful wet crunch behind them, and the hand on Star Swirl's withers shook just a little. He looked into the distant sky and softly sang into the sour breeze.

"_From the sun comes light_  
_From the sun comes power_  
_O, 'tis the sun aloft in the sky_  
_That makes the flowers flower_"

The pair walked in the tall yellow grasses toward a hill in the distance where a winding dirt road waited for them. Their shadows reached behind them to the cadaverous carnival as Star Swirl's ballad muffled the crunch of bones until it was the only sound with them.

_"From the sun comes hope  
From the sun comes laughter_  
_With the sun in Her place,  
We'll embrace a happy ever after_  
_Summer, winter, fall and spring,  
Ah, it makes the whole world sing..."_

The song of the sun gently wrapped around the human and unicorn traveling under the grey sky, strong as a shimmering silver bubble. Fragile, beautiful, impervious to reality bumping against it.


	5. The Dirt Road

Star Swirl lay in the dappled shadow of a maple tree, hiding his face in the crook of his forelegs, his cape bunched and bent over his shoulders. Every once in awhile he would give a small sign of life, a muffled moan of sorrow or a small fit of shivers that would run from the tip of his horn to the base of his tail. The picked bones of the Carnival of Carnivores had been left miles behind, but as the sun broke through clouds as it eased into midday, the reality of what had just happened caught up to him. When they stopped to rest, the aftershock hit the unicorn hard. He had been this way for well over an hour.

"Did you see the way he looked at me?"

The human nestled in the maple where thick branches curled inward to make a little crook just large enough to support his weight as he leaned against the trunk, shoulders shining in the sun. Above his head hung a row of clothes, freshly washed in the nearby stream and colors washed out from age, strung along the branch like little standards in the breeze. He had his pack in his lap as he reorganized inventory, one leg curled beneath him while the other dangled above Star Swirl's withers swinging like a sign come off its hinge.

"Yes," said the human. "I saw. Though I didn't think he was looking at you specifically."

"No, he was. He came out and he looked at the barren cage, then at you, then at the ground, and then he looked at me. Nopony's ever looked at me that way before."

The man reached up to feel one of his shirts. It was still a bit damp, but good enough to wear. "What way did he look at you?"

"I... I am not sure, exactly. But wasn't what I expected. I thought he might be enraged or betrayed or shocked or vengeful but he was none of those. He looked the way one feels looking at ashes of a burnt house. I might call it loss but it was too bitter for loss, or too stubborn perhaps. I don't know." Star Swirl rolled over and shook his head. "It's just such a terrible way to leave the world."

"There are worse ways to go." The human's dangling foot patted the bunched cape on unicorn's shoulder in what he hoped what a comforting gesture. After a quiet moment he added, "And you didn't kill your showmaster." The human said it plainly, as if guessing at a chance of rain or counting shingles on a roof. When Star Swirl only looked up at him with large wavering eyes the human said it again, for it seemed worth repeating. "You did not kill Pyrite. The manticore did."

"I helped put the pieces into place, though."

"If you are guilty for setting free what set the manticore free then Pyrite himself is guilty for not feeding the manticore in the first place. I'm positive if she were well fed and in better spirits, she'd have simply wandered off into the fields the same way the other creatures did." The human swung the other leg over the branch for better leverage as he climbed back into his green tunic. Far better traveling clothes than the bearskin he left behind. "If it makes you feel any better, it happened quickly and I don't think he felt much. Besides, if anyone's responsible, I am. You didn't know what I was going to do, and I was going to let her go in any case. There wasn't much you could have done."

Star Swirl looked up, though from his position he mostly saw legs, branches and flashes of elbows busy with folding laundry. The human looked no more out of place in than a blossom on a branch. It seemed more like the tree that had grown around him, that he was the one that had always been there and it was the land slowly growing around him that was foreign.

"You say it so casually."

"I say it truthfully."

"And you carry no guilt about it, as I do. Though considering the... circumstances of your relationship, I suppose it makes sense."

"I didn't think you had the best relationship with him yourself."

"I didn't. I never liked him much at all. I think I might have even hated him, but death seems to change the way one feels about a pony. I've never seen anyone die before. Not up close. Have you?"

"Just once." There was distance in the human's voice. It did not falter or dwindle, the tone had not changed, but it sounded as if it were floating away somewhere or hiding under a quilt. Star Swirl had to look again to make sure he was still sitting in the same place.

"I can feel guilt," said the human. "I can feel a lot of things. I just don't feel guilty about this in particular. I feel a little bad that someone died but it's not the same thing. At least I don't think so. Other humans have spent a long time worrying over what could never be changed, we have a talent for forbidding things to be as they are. Perhaps in another time or place I'd feel the same as you feel now. There is a lot in the world to mourn and feel sorry for. Pyrite part of it, I suppose. But I don't have time for it now. There is too much to do. I have no time."

The pack plopped into the grass with the human close behind, swinging off the branch with a small hop off the trunk with more ease than Star Swirl had expected for such a large creature. The unicorn stood and shook the grass and uncomfortable feelings out of the wrinkles of his cape. He watched as the human adjusted argyle socks and poked at his boots.

In the chaos of being tossed about from pony to pony, taken in and out of wagons, being grabbed by their strings and dragged in the dirt, the shoes had split apart and broken. Star Swirl began to give his condolences, as the human was already trying to make do with the tattered things. The problem was solved before he got a word out. Dextrous fingers were already weaving the little strings in and out the split layers of shoe, and with a light tug the layers suddenly stood firm to hug the human's ankles, just as if they had never been broken at all. It was like watching a flower open up in reverse. It had happened all so quickly! The unicorn poked it gingerly with a hoof.

The human lifted an eyebrow at him. "What? You've never seen shoes before?"

"None that were fixed so quickly. You must be a talented cobbler." Star Swirl poked the boot again, astounded with the handiwork.

The eyebrow lifted higher and the man wrinkled his brow. "They weren't broken. They're not even worn. out. I just tied them." When the unicorn just stared at him, he explained, "It's... just how people shoes work. These won't wear out for a long while, they're still very sturdy." He knocked on the boot toe, it sounded solid like a turtle shell. "There's metal inside so my foot won't get hurt when something heavy falls on it. Try to smash it."

Star Swirl tilted his head to the side and gently kicked the toe with a hoof. When it didn't give, he kicked harder, and then tried standing on it. The shoe stood firm. "Remarkable. You have soft feet, so you made yourself a hoof. Do you have more of these where you come from?"

He had only meant to ask that one question, but it only reminded him how hungry he was for knowledge and one question soon more questions piling atop each other. "For that matter, where _are _you from? Where else have you been? Why did you not stay there? Did something chase you out? What could possibly be bad enough to chase out a human? Is there really no magic at all in your land? Is there grass?"

Star Swirl put all of his weight on boots as he leaned in closer with each new question. The human wondered what would happen when he ran out of boot to stand on.

"How can grass grow when there are no earth ponies to grow it? And how can you wrap up winter without magic? Oh! Perhaps you don't even have a winter at all? You know, I once heard from a storyteller humans travel in rolling boxes of metal where it is always the same temperature and live where they can decide when it is light or dark or dim and water comes from the walls, and even the _water_ can be hot or cold depending on the whims of who called it. Just as if it had come from the arctic or a hot spring!"

The human pressed against the yew trunk as the unicorn and his bottomless questions edged in closer. His front hooves clambered over the human's bony knees as Star Swirl awkwardly balanced his hind legs on rounded boot toes. A blue velvety nose was inches from his.

"I saw the water in your bottle, did it come from one of those walls? Are the walls made of metal? I have to ask, for I've heard many different opinions on the subject — some say that your walls are made of stone or wood just like our houses but many others say you live in walls made from glass. Glass!"

The rough bark was digging into the human's skin. He watched a starling hop along the branch he was sitting on earlier, wishing he'd stayed up where unicorns couldn't clamor all over him. Could little ponies climb? He hoped not.

"But why would someone live in a house with glass walls? Everypony could see everything one did and wouldn't the whole house simply break apart if there was a hailstorm or somepony threw a rock? It doesn't seem practical." Star Swirl tilted his head to the side, a bit of pink mane falling across his eye and brushing against the human's cheek. "Hmm. Do you know why one would decide to live in a place with glass walls?"

The human waited for another interrogation tidal wave to hit him again but the only sound was Star Swirl catching his breath, which had the odd scent of oats and apricots. After a few heartbeats of welcome silence, the man gave a nervous smile. "Are you done?"

"No", gasped the pony between breaths, "But I cannot recall what the rest are just this moment. I can think of a few more if you like."

"That… won't be necessary, thank you." He took Star Swirl's hooves in his hands and nudged him aside to stand up. The pony twitched his ears, backing away with a sheepish smile and awkward apology on his lips.

Now with some welcome distance between them the human answered, "I'm not sure what all of those questions mean but I can tell you for certain there is no magic in my city. I don't know what grass would have to do with magic but yes, there was plenty of grass and trees and flowers that grew next to the sidewalk. There were a few vegetables in the garden, but I don't know if any have survived now without anyone to tend them."

Star Swirl pricked his ears and smiled at mention of the garden. "And what is a sidewalk?"

"Walkways made of white stone, though now they're more greyish tan than white. They ran next to the asphalt roads that cut through the city like a stream and that way you could walk safely without being run over." He tapped his pack with a foot. "My water comes from the river and rainfall, same as you. I've never seen water come from a wall before. I found some bottles that already had drinkable water inside them, so maybe that water came from walls since it tasted a bit different. There is winter. Unfortunately."

"What of the boxes and towers? Could you not simply change the temperatures in them?"

The human shrugged. "In the buildings? Not anymore. There is a way to play with the wires to make the heat turn on but I never got the chance to learn how. Cities only work that way when there are lots of people living in it to make everything work properly and there aren't any of those. The buildings are made of lots of things. Some are made of wood or bricks and most of the towers were made of metal and glass, although most of the glass broke a long time ago. Some buildings still have a special sort of glass in them that's very strong and almost impossible to break but I don't know why."

Star Swirl closed his eyes and digested the answers slowly, as if unaccustomed to such rich fare. "This city of yours, did it have a name?"

"I'm sure it did but I never found out what it was. There were plenty of signs labeling streets and buildings and things but I don't think I ever found something naming the city itself. I never thought much about it, there wasn't a need to call it anything else besides the city. Names are used to tell the difference between one thing and another and it is the only city I've known."

The pony back sat on his haunches like a cat, which seemed strange for a creature with hooves. The position looked like it ought to be uncomfortable. But then again, there were many things about Star Swirl that were a bit uncomfortable.

The human hoped his answers were enough to stave off the unicorn for a while. These questions had a strange way of seeping into his pores and rubbing against him in ways he didn't like at all.

"If your lone city did not have a name, then do _you_ have one?"

Questions like that for example.

"Yes," the human told him, sounding more nonchalant than he actually was.

When Star Swirl looked at him expectantly with his beard fluttering in the breeze the human put his hands in his pockets and said nothing.

"Well?"

The human leaned against the maple and studied little veins in the leaves. "Well what?"

"What are you called?"

"As I understand it, I am called the contradiction creature. You ought to know that already."

"No, I mean what are _you_ called? You, specifically."

"I am not called anything now, for I have none to call for me."

Star Swirl flicked his tail in frustration. "Then what did others of your kind call you before?"

"I have known very few of my kind. One called me 'the kid', the other called me 'son'. When feeling more affectionate she sometimes called me 'annoying'."

Star Swirl leaned back and sighed so hard his bell jingled. "But you _do_ have a name. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Can you — no, I know this trick — _will_ you tell me what it is?"

The human pushed his hands deeper in his pockets. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's mine." He may as well have been talking to clouds or squirrels for all the courtesy he gave. "And giving it away is a fine way to run into trouble. Especially dealing with magic things. Don't know what's to be done with a name once it's given away, but it cannot be anything good."

There was a short pause. "Do you really think I would do you harm?" The pony's voice wilted as if it had been stomped on. "I stayed as you let the manticore out. I set you free. Is that not enough to trust me?"

The man looked down at Star Swirl's drooping ears, then at the thorn scars etched along his mouth. "I do trust you. But you want something I am not ready to give." He reached down and brushed some pink mane from the pony's eyes. It felt springy and thick and seemed overdue for a haircut. If haircuts were a thing ponies did. "I do owe you something and I would give you something else if I could but I don't have the tools nor the time to craft anything worthwhile. Unless you're looking for a hunting knife or some thread I don't carry anything else to spare that you would want."

"'Tisn't as if I could threaten you with magics even if I wanted." There was a quiet touch of bitterness in his voice but Star Swirl quickly swallowed and buried it under another question. "Where will you go now?"

"I'm not sure." He drummed his fingers against the tree in thought. "Do you know where I could find a… Yarak? Pyrite spoke of a General Yarak that was somehow connected to a White Roc. I suppose I'm going where they are to learn whatever they know." He looked at the unicorn, and then looked up into the branches again. There were little streaks and flashes of blue between the glittering leaves and a long trail of wispy clouds that reminded him of tire tracks. "Have you seen others like me, Star Swirl?"

The pony shook his head, "The closest I have come before now was the tapestry in the great hall of House Galaxy, some wood prints in the mythology archives, and a bronze statue in the King's courtyard. You are the first and only human I've seen. I once heard tell of a unicorn that saw a human, but that mare was old enough to be my grandmother and I was but a small colt. Sorry."

"I didn't think so. It was worth asking, anyway."

"General Yarak lies in the northeast, though I don't know how you plan to reach him, unless humans can sprout wings." When the human wrinkled his brow in confusion Star Swirl explained, "The pegasus tribe lives in the clouds. They are the ponies with wings who craft the weather."

This only confused him further. "They… _craft_ the _weather_?"

"Well, of course," laughed Star Swirl. "Where else could clouds come from? It isn't as if they clouds could form by themselves or rain fall on its own."

"It did in the city."

"All by itself? Are you quite sure you just didn't notice a pony with wings arranging a thunderhead or moving a snow cloud?"

"I told you before, until a few months ago I had never seen a pony at all. In the sky or otherwise."

"If there could be no magic in a human's city… well yes, I suppose that makes sense. If it rained at all, it couldn't be by pegasus magic, could it?" A little smile brimming with curiosity crept on Star Swirl's face. "So the only rain you could have gotten must have been free-falling. I suppose snow and wind and clouds move on their own as well? Rain that falls by itself! Astounding."

"I guess." The human flipped his pack over his shoulder and began to move away before he could be sucked into another vortex of questions. "Thank you anyway for the help, Star Swirl. Farewell to you."

He hadn't gone five steps before a voice piped up behind him. "Wait!" The human looked back to find Star Swirl trailing behind. His hooves made not a sound as he walked, tentative and taut as if stepping on cracks of thin ice in a land of avalanches. The unicorn approached him as he had the manticore cage, keeping a respectful distance but longing to come closer. Amazed at his own boldness, he said, "I know what you can grant me."

The contradiction creature eyed him warily. His eye darted between the unicorn and the road rolling out into the distance, as if measuring the likelihood of outrunning a pony. "…What is it?"

"Take me with you."

The human frowned and grasped the strap of his pack with both hands. He still looked as if he could bolt any second. Star Swirl gave a gentle, hopeful smile. "Unicorns are good luck," he offered. "And good company too, as a famous mare once said."

"Um. I don't mean to offend but the first unicorn I met was not what I would call lucky."

"Perhaps, but it was through that unicorn you learned the Roc flies with General Yarak, there's a sort of fortune in that. You have a point, though: not everypony you could meet will be on kind ground, assuming they recognize you at all. This is no Dream Valley and the world is full of hard hearts and cold eyes. You might welcome a friendly soul by your side and while I am no map maker I know the unicorn territory and the lands on its border fairly well. At least I know it a little more than you do, if you don't mind my saying. I can help find us lodging and ask directions. And I think it will be good for both of us in the future, somehow. I… I have a ken for these sorts of things. Please, take me with you."

The human looked at Star Swirl's lively colors, then at the brass bell shining at the base of his neck. Everything with ears would hear them coming and remember them after they left. He wasn't sure what that would mean for them when they went amongst the other little ponies but he was sure it would make for rough hunting. But the bearded fellow did seem to know the land, which was always useful. The human wasn't sure if he enjoyed having a unicorn's company or not. But he didn't think he was ready to turn him away either.

"You can come if you like."

Star Swirl lept forward in a flare of silk cape and excited jingles. He meant to approach in a dignified canter but it somehow ended up as more of a lamb-like prance. "You shan't regret it."

The man looked down at the beaming little fellow and suppressed a smile of his own. "Aren't you supposed to be afraid of me or something?"

"Probably. Aren't _you_ supposed to be extinct?"

This time the human did smile.

* * *

Star Swirl was a hardier creature than the human expected. Despite looking sort of like a colorful horned throw pillow stuffed with too many questions, he kept up easily. He was never far from his side, catching up in eager canters when the human moved into brisk walks and strolling behind evenly as they ambled over rolling hills.

He was quieter than expected, too. In the two days they had traveled together Star Swirl spoke as much as the human did, which was hardly at all. Every now and then he would remark on a notable rock formation or sing a little song to himself, but he mostly kept to himself as they traveled. The human sometimes wondered if Star Swirl had simply worn himself out after his waterfall of inquiries or if he was simply shy of speaking after the effort of convincing the human to take him along. He was often lost in thought with something was on his mind or on the tip of his tongue, but would not voice it and the human did not ask about it.

On the third morning of their travels together Star Swirl was awoken by a shrill scream in the distance. He craned his neck up towards the willow branch where the human had curled up the night before. The boots and knapsack were gone but he'd left something behind as a sign he would return.

Star Swirl was grateful the pegasi scheduled a warm summer this year. That meant the thing was kept in the pack and out of sight for most of the day. It came out at nightfall to be used as a blanket, but the mercy of the dark made it seem no different than any other bit of cloth. The pitiless morning offered no such comfort. The human's cloak draped over the willow branch like a broken bat wing just inches above where the unicorn had slept moments before. A breeze tousled Star Swirl's cape, his bell rang happily as silk flared and snapped at his sides. The dangling cloak tips gently waved at him, hardly disturbed at all. Whatever material it was made from was too heavy to be blown away; it had to be something heavy like wool or velvet. Or something else.

His ears pricked at the sound of something crunching under a heavy foot, and his nose twitched at the smell of smoke. There was another shriek, but the sound cut off as swiftly as it started.

In a different company a morning that began with screams and smoke would be alarming. Instead it only affirmed the human did not have to go far to find breakfast. At least he did this sort of thing out of sight. The unicorn suppressed a shudder and made his way to the stream for a drink.

It wasn't the meat eating that troubled him. Star Swirl had worked under Pyrite for three years, after all. In the constant company of wolves, weasels, and bears, one eventually became used to the idea of bleeding flesh and teeth cracking bones. But the company of a wolf and the company of a contradiction creature was not the same thing. Not at all.

At the sound of approaching boots he edged aside to give the space as the human knelt beside him on the bank to refill his strange clear bottles. They nodded good morning to each other. Star Swirl shook water from his dripping beard and offered a thin smile. "So. Um. Aside from nuts and berries and fruits what else do you eat?"

"At home it was mostly ducks and pigeons. These days I just eat whatever I can catch." The human shrugged, "Mostly it's squirrels and rabbits when I can manage to catch them. Sometimes I fish, but fishing takes more time than I would like. I can make do with almost anything, assuming it isn't poisonous."

Star Swirl eyed the hare feet sticking out of the top of the human's pack. The feet waggled and bounced in a macabre little jig as he moved. The toes were tinged red.

The human sat back on his heels and washed the blood from his knife, humming a little song to himself. Without looking back at the unicorn he said, "No, I don't eat ponies."

"Oh, but I didn't think… That is, I didn't mean to imply—"

"I try to avoid eating things that talk." The human smirked. "And you talk a great amount."

The unicorn gingerly smiled back but it withered as he watched the human return to the willow tree to retrieve his cloak made from… Well, Star Swirl was happier not knowing.

He waited until it was safely put away before he approached the human again and they continued down the road.

* * *

A covered wagon pulled by a team of burly earth ponies thundered past them, obscured by clouds of grit and dust.

"Second one today," the human observed. "And the day isn't even half over."

Similar small signals of civilization had become more and more common lately. Abandoned carts without wheels, hoof prints running over hoof prints in the dirt, forgotten horseshoes in the grass, candlelight from lonely cottages in the distance.

The dirt path split as it climbed to the hilltop where a white signpost perched waiting for them, its wooden arrows splayed out like open arms. An odd language of hard edged letters the human couldn't read scrawled across it, along with simple drawings of fruit and houses. Star Swirl looked at it and grinned. "Ah, we're right on track, Conemara is only a few miles ahead. Look, from here you can see some of it already."

The human looked in the distance at the cluster of rooftops all colored in cheerful reds, pearly pinks, and buttery yellows in a valley of vibrant grass, pretty little pebbles at the bottom a shallow green bowl. Streaks of grey ran through the valley in intricate patterns, branching out and around in ragged zigzags, smooth curls, and straight edges and it made the human homesick for his own empty roads.

"It's a town of earth ponies near the Nation's border. We ought to be there well before nightfall for some lodging. Feels like ages since I've slept in a proper bed."

"Is there anything to eat there?"

Star Swirl gave a warm little chuckle. "If not in Conemara then nowhere at all. Tis the main hub of trade with the Kingdom in the way of luxury goods, ice creams, cakes, and the like. Those twisting roads down there are so intricate to keep ponies from stepping on the grass. Finest grass you'll find anywhere. They say it's so soft and lush the quilt makers cry themselves to sleep in fits of jealousy."

The human frowned. "I don't eat grass."

"Ha! Expensive as Conemara grass is? Neither do I. But in any town with earth ponies you're bound to find plenty besides to eat. They know the ways of their land and the harvest and food the same as unicorns know their moon phases and pegasi know cloud patterns."

"Speaking of the clouds, what do you know of the White Roc?" The human glanced at the sky stretching above him, pale blue and barren. "I always thought rocs lived in hotter places of sand and grasslands, feasting upon elephants and fighting crocodiles. What could it be doing this far north? And what's it to do with General Yarak?"

Star Swirl thought a few moments before answering, "The three pony tribes do not go amongst each other, save for when we exchange goods and services. Many unicorns go their whole lives never meeting a pony without a horn and are more than glad for it. Keep this in mind when I tell you that most all ponies know the name of the fearsome General Yarak. Details are a mite obscure in exactly how, but t'was through him the griffon wars were won. In the latter years of the war the Hegemony fractured against the force of the griffon army; they conquered most of the northern cities and encroached further by the day. It was to the point where the shadow of red talons was a common sight in Nation skies and any unicorn with a telescope could see the sun glinting off armor."

It was literally all downhill from here. Star Swirl often dashed ahead quicker than his hooves could manage, often tripping as the road grew steep. The human went carefully behind him for fear of slipping. Were it snowing, the two of them could have easily sledded into Conemara and saved half a day's walk.

"But as the griffons pushed forward, Yarak's company moved backward into the northern aeries in the heart of griffon territory. Some say he blazed through the infantries and straight into the Emperor's court in endless waves of blood and feathers, fueled only by righteous white-hot fury and the iron taste of blood in his mouth. Other says Yarak simply went the wrong way. The end is the same either way. In a month—_one month_ in an eight year war—the Emperor was slain and the enemy devastated in their own land. Not only did the Hegemony win back their lands, but claimed a good hundred miles of griffon land for themselves too."

"That's all very interesting," sighed the man not looking for a history lesson. "But what about the Roc?"

Star Swirl waggled conspiratorial pink eyebrows. "Ah, but how did general claimed victory so suddenly? Griffons are not easily slain, to cut down a mass of them with such swiftness would call for something unheard of, something huge." The unicorn swished his cape and hid his nose in the shadow of silk and secrets. "A secret weapon so terrible, so immensely—"

The human jostled the bag against his shoulder, pointedly unimpressed. "The weapon was the White Roc."

"The White Roc indeed!" If the unicorn noticed the human's irritation then he didn't show it. "I can't tell you much of the Roc in the ways of fact. There are scores of stories and songs and poetry and so many of them contradict each other. I have often heard the Roc is a pale phantom crafted from souls of the vengeful dead and I have also heard that the army bore the Roc's egg in a secret keep, raising it on minotaur hearts and elephant bones. Wilder stories say the White Roc is a mechanical creature, all twirling cogs and smoke clouds, Yarak is the Roc's father, Yarak tricked the Roc into slavery, or the Roc is General Yarak himself under a curse. Popular opinion in the capitol says the Roc is not real at all, just a simple metaphor for the army or else a rumor they made up to frighten the other tribes. I suppose we will discover the truth of the Roc when we come to it."

The human looked again at the empty sky and rubbed his shoulder. "I'd hate to think I've come all this way in search of a metaphor." Half-expecting a shadow to suddenly loom overhead, he found himself missing the shelter of tree branches as the pair eased into the heart of the valley.


	6. The Old World & The Stargazer's Ape

They came to Conemara in the late afternoon, as the sun prepared to duck behind the hills. At the city gates daily shipments rolled in beside them in clattering, rattling wagons. Occasionally, reedy messengers blew past them in colorful blurs, clipping street corners and leaping over shoppers, spurred by the promise of a handsome reward. The human saw the rushing ponies, wondering if he and the unicorn should walk faster to avoid becoming trampled. It soon became clear, however, that in Conemara the fleet footed were an anomaly.

It was a healthy hamlet, just a smidge too big to be a town and a pinch short of truly being a true city, contentedly curled in the soft hills wealthy in life and lush grasses none dared walk upon. The dirt paths and cobblestone walkways were wide and welcoming and bursting at the seams. Clusters of little ponies gathered hungrily around little brick shops where sweet smells wafted from sills and chimneys, and moseyed on cobblestones with their carts and cattle and gossip clogging the arteries of the street. Wayfarers bumped into one another with mumbled apologies and dipped hats, while the citizens tightly squeezed past each other with easy smiles.

The human edged closer to Star Swirl to make room for a stallion and his train of Jersey cows. Fidgeting, he hooked a finger under the unicorn's cape and gasped it like a silken tether. He recalled how the little group of unicorns around the thorn cage unnerved him with their numbers and he almost laughed to himself; that was a paltry handful compared to the massive herd he navigated now. Conemara sort of reminded him of the city he left behind, but of course it wasn't. It was a warped reflection of the human's city; it was shorter, it was fatter, its bones were made of wood instead of iron, topped by thatched roofs and shining tiles. The windows were clear and unbroken, the signposts freshly painted, the walls unmarred by scrawling graffiti of dead wordsmiths. It was alive and it lived so well it could afford to be slow, soft, and easy.

_A city is not supposed to be this way_, he thought.

The human knew cities. He knew them better than he knew the scars on his skin. He knew _his_ city where he never got lost, where his fellow citizens were bony coyotes hiding under truck cabins, cats lurking in rafters, and pigeons roosting atop darkened street lights. Where the wind blew through what used to be walls, where the only voice was his echo in the tunnels.

_A city is not supposed to be this_. But even as the human thought this, a deeper, quieter part him whispered _You know better. This is what a_ true _city looks like. A city's heart beats with a million footsteps, speaks with ten million voices telling stories in their storeys. And you know that._

Plump, stout Conemara with its lush grasses and skipping milkmares had every right to call itself a city, much more than the human's dead city did. A place of ponies built by ponies, for ponies, and no other. In the overlapping conversations and clip-clop hooves on cobblestone it told him what he already knew. This world did not know him, it did not belong to him anymore.

The human gripped Star Swirl's cape a little tighter. The unicorn glanced back at him with concerned eyes. "You might want to give your rein some slack and let out that breath you're holding." In the rumbling streets it was a strain to hear him. "It's a bit tight here, but nopony's looking at you, there's no need to worry."

He was right, of course. At a brisk pace they moved along faster than most of the little ponies placidly ambling around them. None were in any sort of rush, they had all the time in the world to joke and gossip and complain as they pulled their livelihoods with them in baskets and little carts. A few ponies resting on long benches brought their heads up to watch them pass, but their eyes were usually focused on Star Swirl.

It was then the human noticed that almost all that went by them were earth ponies. All excepting a trio of unicorns who stood off by themselves. The earth ponies gave them a wide berth as the unicorns whispered amongst themselves, studying a bit of parchment held magically in midair. It was almost as if there were an invisible rope between them and the rest of Conemara. When a mare holding a basket of herbs stepped into the invisible barrier to speak to them, the unicorns all gave her a sort of side-eyed scowl and did not answer. The mare dropped her eyes and shuffled away.

As the traveling pair passed them the human felt Star Swirl's muscles tense. For a short moment, they all looked at each other before Star Swirl averted his eyes and pretended to ignore the whispers fluttering amongst the trio.

"Do you know them?" the human asked.

"Not exactly. They of know me, though." Star Swirl cleared his throat and searched the area for a change of subject. "I believe we've come out of the shopping district by now. Look, the crowds are thinning."

The human and the unicorn came to a place in town where the stout buildings had more elbow room, the pastures spread out as if each barn and bungalow wore sprawling capes of grass. There had been plenty of inns in the shopping district but Star Swirl had ignored them entirely, for they were deemed either too crowded or expensive. The residential district did not seem any better. They passed five inns, two hostels, three bed-and-breakfasts, and a boarding house but none of them suitable to sleep in. Some required a tall expense Star Swirl could not afford, while others had no vacancies (though the human could have sworn there had been empty rooms).

The lamplighters were out balancing upon step-stools with their candles when the travelers came to a split-level brick house painted in merry pinks and whites. A shiny brass gate ran across the perimeter, tall enough to keep the riffraff out when the gate was closed, but not tall enough to seem unwelcoming. If not for Star Swirl's insistence they open the gate and walk in like civilized creatures, the human could have hopped the fence easily.

The unicorn frowned at the front lawn, enormous compared to the other yards and most other houses had no lawn in front at all. He sulked at the front door's fresh coat of paint and gleaming doorknob. He scowled at the lacy mountain of pillows stacked upon the foyer's couch as if a lace pillow slaughtered his mother.

"So what is the matter with this one?" asked the human.

Star Swirl's nose twitched at the smell of roses and freshly baked bread. "Nothing is wrong with it. It's lovely. I couldn't imagine a nicer hotel, so there is no way I can afford it. But no harm in trying, I suppose." He rang the cowbell hanging by the front desk, waited a few moments in silence, then rang twice more.

On the third ring, a mare waddled in from the back room dressed in a high-collared jacket adorned with a little broach in the shape of a pie in the lapel, dragging along a scroll of parchment. Her coat shone with health; it was the color of overripe raspberries and overpowered the subtler hues around her. Fluffy buttermilk curls spilled over her shoulders and bounced with each step.

"Here, what's all this din and dither this hour of the night? Pecan Pie, that had better not be you again, I already told you, you have to pay your fine befor—Oh!" Upon seeing a unicorn up front she blinked in surprise and took a moment to readjust herself. "Oh, good evening! So sorry, I almost mistook you for somepony else, we usually don't get, er, your sort of company at this hour. What's the trouble, sir?"

Star Swirl seemed equally surprised, though his voice was too weary to show it. "Oh, dear. I knew something about this house was too good to be true. Pray pardon, Miss Mayor. Lickety Split the… fifth, is it?"

"Sixth," she said. Her eyes darted between the pink beard and the starry mark on Star Swirl's flank barely exposed through a fold of silk. The mare gave a little jolt as if picked by a pin. Her voice climbed an octave, a rigid smile overtook her face. "And it's no trouble at all, I assure you!"

"I—or, we—were just looking for an affordable place to spend the night. I'd no idea this was your house, by the size of it I presumed… well, never mind it, we'll just be on our way."

"NONsense! Why, you look just about ready to collapse, dear. Must have been a long way for a young fellow, I expect, but there's no need for worry. You can set your bones down here in our house."

"But I wouldn't want to troub—"

"No trouble at all, lad! Why, our fair little city has always welcomes guests from beyond the Earth Pony Nation. The only thing more famous than Conemara's hospitality is the grass. Have you tried the grass? Lovely this time of year, it is. And you know what they say: 'No burgh, nor hamlet, nor stone riviera may surpass the cordial of sweet Conemara'."

The human moved in for a closer look. He had to lean over to see all of her, she was scarcely taller than the counter she stood behind, but her towering influence seemed to make up for it. Mayor Lickety Split beamed up at them with a short, rounded face that reminded him more of a tiny hippo than a pony. The human marveled at her size; how her ribs were safely insulated and cushioned behind rolls of flesh, how he couldn't see her cheekbones at all.

Had there ever been a night she went to bed hungry? She or any other pony in this plump city? The thought brought pangs of either jealousy or hunger, he couldn't tell which. Star Swirl was right about Conemara's wealth if they all kept so well-fed and warm in the winter. He looked at the mayor's brittle smile with a touch of confusion. So then why did she look like a rabbit in a snare right now? What was there left to fear amongst all this comfort?

Star Swirl looked about the room and shrugged with a little sigh. If there was a warm bed in it for him, he wasn't about to argue. "Truly, it isn't necessary, but if you insist…"

Lickety Split IV nodded, satisfied. "All settled snuggly, then. Though of course there is the matter of—"

"Payment," finished a new voice. None of them had noticed the honey colored mare until she had spoken, though the human had no idea how he could have missed her. She was the average size for a pony but gaunt for a Conemaran, and the lacy blue bonnet upon her head did nothing to soften her appearance. A head taller than the mayor and leagues harder, she stared at Star Swirl like he'd stolen something. "There is still the matter of payment, little stargazer. I hope you have coin this time."

The mayor let out a high-pitched, near hysteric giggle, "Oh! Um, this is Honey Glaze, she helps me some with the baking and the… the um, things in…matters. Sugar, say hello to our _guest_ from out of town."

The honey mare leaned across the counter to whisper something in the mayor's ear. Lickety Split looked at her, then at the mildly confused Star Swirl. "Oh. So you mean he's not…?"

"Nothing of the sort. He was here two years before, don't you recall? He told Sorbet's fortune and juggled cherries badly."

Mayor Lickety Split IV heaved a sigh of relief, all of her slumped like a collapsed soufflé. "Ahhh, I see it now. You're the bearded fellow from the carnival, with all the long toothed nasties. Heh, didn't recognize you without the wagons and star charts." The grin returned, this time with the loose warmth of a natural smile. "What happened, son? You run away from the circus to join a home? Your boss finally decide to retire?"

Star Swirl rubbed a hoof behind his neck. "Something like that. This doesn't change anything, does it? The Showmaster left me plenty of bits to live on, I was always prepared to pay for our beds."

"Glad to hear it. But who else are you with?"

The unicorn offered a hooffull of bits, gesturing to the human, just coming short of touching him. "My yeti," he explained. "I never like to be apart from him too long, he's a touch ill, as you can see. We're headed to see a specialist up north. I promise he won't make a mess of the room."

Lickety Split nosed through the coins. "This will do for a night, I suppose. It's less than it ought to be for bed and food, but since I like you, it'll do. But no animals indoors. 'Specially not sick ones." She nodded to the window where a beagle stared intently at them through the shutter slats. "Even Pete sleeps outdoors, and I love him like kin. Your bald yeti is welcome to sleep in the yard, so long's he don't bother Maybelle."

Before Star Swirl could argue further the mayor yawned and made for the back room. "I'm to bed, Honey can see to settling you in. Try not to keep her too long."

Star Swirl scrunched his nose. "Is the barn really the best you can do?"

"It's either sleeping in the stalls with Maybelle or in the yard with Pete." Honey Glaze was hardly minding the unicorn. She brushed a brown forelock from her eyes and peered up at the human, humming like a beehive. "Just what is that old cob doing to his acts nowadays? Shearing them like sheep instead of sharpening canines?"

In a syrupy voice one normally reserves for toddlers or wiggling kittens she cooed, "Well hey there, little fellow. How are we today? You're a sweetie, I'll bet."

The human sighed, disappointed but not very surprised. He offered a small wave hello.

Honey Glaze smiled at that and took a step closer. Her smile shrank an inch and she leaned in to examine his hand, adjusting the little round glasses on her nose. "Sir stargazer." Her voice hardened faster than neglected gingerbread. "If he is a yeti, then why is his fur so dark?"

"Oh, well, it's not wintertime, miss," Star Swirl happily explained. "No use for thick white fur without snow to hide in, so he switches the hue of his hair just like a hare."

"Skin does not change color with the seasons."

The unicorn buckled his shoulders in a weary slump and sighed as if this were the sixtieth time he had explained all of this. "The yeti has dark skin underneath its fur so that it may absorb more sunlight to keep warm. Not unlike arctic bears."

Honey Glaze's eyes narrowed into blue slits. "Polar bears are black underneath, not brown. And this fellow here is not even the dark sable of pumpernickel; color looks closer to a gingersnap if you ask me. Not much to absorb the sun. And why do the paw pads look a different color and why are they so thin?"

Star Swirl flicked an anxious ear and desperately looked to the human for help, but all he received was a shrug. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence as the cover story melted around him, he gave an obstinate little snort and huffed, "Oh, what would a baker know of yetis, anyway?"

The honey mare dusted a bit of flour off her shoulder. "Well, it's an interesting thing about Conemara. Many of us work food, but there are other things that need doing too. My dearest Split is the Mayor, for instance. As for me..." She pleasantly smiled at Star Swirl with all of her teeth. "I'm the city veterinarian."

"…oh."

"I can also tell you that yetis have longer claws, bigger broader noses, and feet the length of palm leaves, not to mention they are far too tall to fit into a split level house." She brought down her hoof as a knight brings down his sword. "This," said Honey Glaze "Is _not_ a yeti. This is _obviously_ a young sasquatch. And an ill kept one at that."

"Oh? Oh! Well, you don't say? Hmm."

"Some zookeeper, doesn't even know what animals he has. Can't say as I'm surprised, he looks nothing like he ought." The mare gently prodded the human's knee cap. "Here, when was the last time you fed the poor thing? He's almost as thin as your manticore. Wouldn't be surprised if the fur just fell out from malnutrition, I wouldn't. I suppose you were trying to pass him off as a… a wood elf or somesuch."

Star Swirl sighed, tired, defeated, and in want of a bed. "You caught me, miss. Yes, a thin one he is, but I've no precedence on what the owner does or wants. The carnival's not retired, I've actually stolen away with the final act in tow. He is in my care by ill gain but not for ill purpose. I couldn't bear to leave him where he was, and I can't let him go either, miss. Been raised tame."

Honey Glaze yielded at the stargazer's surrender and her sweet smile was back again. "There, now. Doesn't it feel better to be truthful?"

"Oh, it's a weight off my shoulders, let me tell you."

* * *

Star Swirl may have disapproved of the human sleeping in barns, but the human certainly did not. The wide openness of closed space relaxed his muscles, the clogged arteries of Conemara streets with its constant chatter seemed miles away. An aged building of long width and tall rafters, he welcomed it like an old friend. It was still a place owned by ponies, but the evidence of it was sparse enough for him to forget that uncomfortable detail.

The barn was dimly lit by three fireflies listlessly hovering near the rafters and the place had the soft, comforting scent of hay and old hickory wood. The human smelled something else too, something sweet and fresh and comforting that put him in the mind of new leaves in a drizzle. He followed the scent to the only occupied stall, where a Jersey cow—Maybelle, presumably—had her dark nose in a pile of grass. She brought her head up and stared at him with more aptitude than he expected from a cow. It looked almost…grouchy. The grass in her manger was a vibrant green even in dim light. Curious, the human took some and rubbed the thin, wispy blades between his fingers. It felt closer to feather down or the fur of baby rabbits than grass.

"Uh. Excuse you."

The human nearly jumped out of his skin. Apparently it wasn't just ponies that talked.

"I don't think anyone said you could root your weird little paws through my dinner," the cow groused. "This is expensive, you know. We work too hard growing this grass for it to be poked at by a… whatever you are."

"I'm a man," said the man.

"Never heard of you." Maybelle sniffed and turned her back on him to eat in peace. The human shrugged and went on exploring the barn with the decision to sleep in a stall far from the cow's.

A wooden tub of water sat at the far end of the barn, presumably for bathing. It was a strange arrangement for bathing, as the bottom was lined with what looked like oats (was this a bath or a breakfast?) and the water was warm. He gave himself a short wash, paying special attention to the thorn scrapes on his back and to his hair, grimy from sweat, dust, and other symptoms of travel. The water had a pleasant effect on his spirits, the sting of homesickness ebbed into the dull ache of nostalgia.

It was then the human noticed something hanging above the barn door. A pair of horseshoes linked together over a knothole and some cobwebs. It was the first time he had ever seen iron that bent to serve ponies. A small reminder of who actually owned this barn and the world outside of it.

He brushed a hand through his freshly washed hair, turned his eyes to the shadows in the rafters, and sighed. There was something he had to do.

* * *

Star Swirl arrived later that night carrying a wicker basket, a lantern, and a downy pillow. He seemed surprised to find the human curled in the corner of the stall in a bed of straw, perfectly content and wrapped in his cloak. "I came to see if I could make you more comfortable, but I see you've done that yourself."

"I told you I'd be alright. It's a very nice barn. Clean, empty and quiet, I couldn't ask for more than that. But thank you anyway." The human fluffed the pillow, put it behind his head and patted the empty hay next to him. "It sort of reminds me of where I used to live. Sort of."

Star Swirl entered carefully, tiptoeing around the outstretched leather cloak as if it were made of faulty wires glazed with kerosene and he carried a torch. His hooves did a strange hopscotch dance on the hay until he found a suitable place in the straw to sit. Unicorns were certainly picky about their living conditions. "I thought humans from the city hated things like barns and only liked tall, tight spaces. Is that not why you always sleep in the trees?"

"I sleep in trees because the last time I fell asleep on the ground I awoke in a cage of thorns. This is the first barn I've ever been in, but I'm used to small rooms in larger buildings. Sort of like the mall I grew up in."

"Oh," said Star Swirl. He set down the basket and lantern between them. "What is a mall?"

"A hollow building with lots and lots of rooms inside. Some rooms are the size of this stall but other rooms are twice the width of this barn. I don't know for certain what a mall was used for. I believe it was supposed to be one big shop with lots of little ones inside of it, kind of like a beehive. But I never knew for sure. Some of the bigger shops still had things inside of them."

"What sorts of things?"

"Nothing too special, mostly old signs with a bunch of random numbers written on them, many mentioned something called a 'Sale'. The place we lived in used to be a toy store, it still had lots of dolls. They were painted white, stood tall as me, and they all looked off into the distance in the strangest poses. Many of them didn't have faces, some didn't have heads at all. Others were missing their arms and legs, I even saw one that was just a torso." The human rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don't think it was a very good toy store."

"It was a good, safe place to live, especially in winter. In the middle of the mall was a big open area with dried up fountains and one big window in the ceiling. When the leaves changed color, we brought part of the garden indoors where they'd be safe from the frost, though the vegetables grown inside never got very big. Still, it was good to have a food source in winter so we didn't need to go out hunting all the time. One winter we figured how to make the lights and heat come on after poking at wires in the walls in the just right way. The vegetables grew well that year too, we hardly had to go outside at all! It was just like an indoor summer, except sometimes I had to scrape snow off the roof."

"We?" Star Swirl looked up from his cake and licked a dollop of green frosting from his nose. "I thought you said you were alone in your human city and the inside weather doesn't work anymore."

"Not always. I lived in that mall with my mother for about twelve or fourteen summers."

"I didn't know you had a mother."

The human smiled at him. "I don't know what your songs have been telling you Star Swirl, but humans don't just crawl full-grown from the mud. I take care of the city the best I can, but my mother knew more of our city than I ever did, more than I ever will." The man pulled himself up to sit, chin resting peacefully on his knee, and he closed his eyes as if listening to distant music. "Before she got the chance to teach me more of what she knew, she got a thick cough that wouldn't go away and was gone before springtime."

Star Swirl's ears drooped and he buried his nose in the food basket, as if he would find the proper way to respond next to the milkshakes. He'd never been very good at this sort of thing. "I'm sorry," he said to the basket.

"It happens, don't worry about it." There was an underscore of laughter in his voice, amused at some secret joke. "I just wish she'd at least waited until the ground was soft and easy to dig in, but she always did want me to learn things the hard way. If I didn't know better, I'd say she did it on purpose so I'd finally know how to dig up frozen ground, because when the snow fell I always found a way to get out of it. "

The human peered over Star Swirl's head into basket and sniffed at the warm sweetness inside. "Is the rest of that for me?"

"Hmm? Oh! Yes, it is. Please do try and eat most of it, I don't want the lady of the house to scold me anymore about how underfed you are."

The human paused to feel at his poking ribs before digging into the basket. It was lined full of all sorts of soft things covered in glazes, frostings, and creams, along with a side bowl of fruit and nuts. He poked at a spongy yellow foodstuff that was covered with something brown and glossy. It looked like wet mud, yet was dry and sort of sticky. With so many new, strange things to eat, it was hard to know where to start. This cache could last him at least a week back at home.

"I expect you would have liked my ma, Star Swirl." It was difficult to make out words in the crunching static of pecans and cashews in his mouth. "She knew so much about our city. Not only how to fix what was broken and how to mend wires, but how it all really used to work in the Old World days of her mother's mother. 'There are power lines in our bloodlines', as she put it. I don't know much about electricity—that's what the Old World lived on, electricity—but I know wires ran behind plaster and under asphalt as nerves run under skin. They carried information and light with them, though you never saw them do it, you only saw how it manifested. Back then all the buildings lit up and had indoor summers, and it was never dark even in the middle of the night."

Star Swirl peered at the window and wondered what such a sky would look like. If it simply looked like daytime or if the human's city had any moon or stars. "Is—was?—your city bigger than Conemara?"

"At least twice the size, I'm sure. I know that it at least takes twice the time to walk my concrete city than this thatched one. And my city's actually one of the smaller ones." The human put aside the empty bowl and thought carefully for a moment. "I can show you, if you like."

"Of course! I've heard so much of the elder structures of iron, but never seen one up close. It would be an enlightening visit if you'd have me, and there would be so much to—"

"No, I mean here. Now." The human rooted around his pack and pulled out a book of long width and thin pages. The glossy cover was firm but pliable. It flopped in his hand like a dead eel.

Star Swirl stretched his neck as the man opened it and edged closer, either ignorant or uncaring of his hooves upon the leather cloak. "Oh!" He called out so loud the cow glared daggers at him, but he paid her no mind. "On my word, it's like a scroll, but with many pages instead of just one. But the make of the paper is shiny, thinner than ours and yet seems stronger, harder to tear. I'd no notion humans kept archives of their own—oh, listen to my prattle. All other manner of creatures keep their histories one way or another, why not humans? Printed in fine, even lines with nary a smudge. I envy your typesetters."

When he looked closer the unicorn's firework smile dimmed a little. "Hm. I don't know how to read your language." But he instantly brightened again. "No matter. I can learn it later, I'm sure. I figured out dragon symbols, this doesn't appear much harder. What is this one about? Is it also about malls and livewires?"

The human lifted up a smaller book with a harder cover from his other side as if he had spun knowledge from straw. A sprig of honeysuckle peeked out of the pages. "This one is about a poor man who becomes a rich man and throws big parties in an egg to win the love of a rich girl who likes fancy shirts."

"A classic tale," Star Swirl mused, though the addition of parties inside eggs was new to him. "I suppose they live happily ever after?"

The human snapped up one of the littler cakes in two bites. "Actually, the girl kills someone with his yellow car, then he takes the blame for it. So then the man dies and the girl goes back to her old husband and forgets the whole thing ever happened."

"...And that is the end of the story?"

"That's the end."

"I see." The unicorn decided human stories were quite bizarre indeed. "Have you any more of these? And what is a car and what manner of weapon is it?"

"These are the only books I brought with me, but at home I have at least a couple thousand."

Star Swirl's eyes became very wide.

"I lived in a library," the human preened. "When I left, I had been through a third of all the books stored there. I could have read more than that, but I wasn't sure what to do when I finished all of them, so I went slowly. As for cars..."

The human moved back to the first book and flipped through pages of flickering black and white until there was a shock of color.

The illustration began in grey skies and led the eye down into angular grey, white, and rooftops, and then down, down until it exploded with color. Little green signs on the walkways, orange signs, black signs, grey signs upon buildings. A shiny coat of buttercup yellow. An umbrella splayed out in all the rainbow's colors. Silver puddles. Red bricks. Dangling yellow boxes with red and green circles.

The dark road was slicked with rain and a long line of metal carriages traveled upon it. Every one of them candy wrapper bright in their shells of reds, blues, violets, golds, silvers, blacks, whites, pinks, oranges. Many had the round shapes of beetles, but others were squat, boxy, and tall. Star Swirl's favorite was the white one that stretched out like a cat in the sun, the windows dark and mysterious. These, the human explained, were cars and they were more preferred for riding than murder weapons.

Star Swirl stared, afraid to blink, lest the text evaporate like dew or summer love. "Tis like a wood print." He said it in a voice fit for temples, small and flushed with wonder. "A wood print, or... or a tapestry. Yet it is all so detailed and clear, as if plucked straight from the world and on a page. Ah, right you are! There ARE humans in the metal things if I look a bit harder."

In fact, there were many more humans than the ones in cars. They came in all manner of sizes and shapes and they were _everywhere_. The little pony had not noticed them at first, distracted as he was by the colorful cars, but the more he looked the more of them he saw. They walked along the paths, in pairs or in groups —would you call it a pack or a herd?—or went along by themselves. They slept upon human sized benches, they ate their meaty lunches under trees, they peered out tiny windows of buildings that scraped the clouds, they carried bulging bags, they were pulled along by small fuzzy dogs on leashes. Their hides came in various shades of peachy beiges and earthy browns, but wore every manner of color, pattern, style, and design. From a distance they were not unlike flocks of extravagant birds.

Star Swirl often looked at the same spots two, three, five times and always found something he never noticed before. An untranslatable word upon a duck billed hat. A little box full of light. An argument between friends. A lovers' rendezvous under an awning.

The human sipped at his drink, which had the same pinkish color of Lickety Split's coat and topped with a fluffy, cloud-like substance and a cherry. He curled his toes and grinned like a yearling in springtime. "This is amazing."

"Yes," breathed the unicorn. "Yes it is."

"No, not the picture. I mean _this_! This thing I'm drinking, it's... it's sweet, but it's also tart and smooth! What is it? It's amazing!"

"That? 'Tis only an ice cream milkshake. Raspberry, strawberry, some sort of berry."

Maybelle gave a look flat as an unpracticed choirgirl. "'Only ice cream', he says. Got some nerve." She sniffed at the human. "And it is from Conemara. Of course it is amazing. I made it. You're welcome." And she went back to her cud chewing without another word.

"Um. In any case, if that picture looks real that's because it is. Sort of. A captured image at a certain point of time, just as it was seen. When you have a picture like that it's called something else, I forget what. Involves graphs. This one is from Nineteen Hundred Eighty Eight."

"I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I will take your word for it. Were all of your cities like this?"

"Many, but not all of them. This book only mentions the big famous ones. Here's how they look at night."

Star Swirl bent down for a better look, his beard ran across the skyline like a pink paintbrush. "It's full of stars. Lights everywhere. When did any of you sleep?"

The human shrugged. "When they wanted to, I suppose. A few books I read didn't seem to favor the idea of a city. They said such a big place with people jammed up against each other made everyone meaner, somehow. I don't really understand that, but then again, I wasn't there." He tapped a little cluster of high rises in the distance. "Some of these buildings are business or hotels, but this part here? That is where humans lived. Lots of little dwellings in one big dwelling that was part of a collection of dwellings. Neighbors lived on top of you, below you, across from you and on both sides. So even when it seemed like you were alone, you were never really alone." The thought made him smile despite his loathing of crowds.

"How far away is your Old World's Nineteen Hundred Eighty Eight?" Star Swirl asked. "Eons or is it closer?"

"Closer than an eon. The mother of my mother's mother saw it as a child, I hear." He slurped up the last bits of milkshake with a satisfied hum.

"So many of you. And far marvelous still, so many in but this single city. Numbers of other cities still, all with just as many if not more..." He trailed off, staring below the pages, under the straw, beneath the stone and soil, and straight into days long gone. Then his dark eyes looked at the human. "It is not my place to ask, but..."

"Yes?"

"Where did they all go?"

The human was quiet then. He folded his legs under him and looked up at the stable's little window filled with night.

Star Swirl flicked an apologetic ear. "As I said, it is not my place to ask. You need not answer if you prefer."

"No. It's not that. Can you dim the lantern a little?"

Star Swirl opened part of the lantern just a little. A quartet a fireflies lit freely into the night, drifting up and out of the window like dying embers. The human watched them go, then looked up to watch his twitching shadow lick the curves of the ceiling. In the light, it was unwise to speak of the dead. Ghosts slept in the daytime, hiding from all things loud or shining. Nobody, not even the dead, like being talked about behind their backs. They liked to sit in the contours of shadows to listen and remember how they once were. The human could grant them that small kindness at least.

The story opened as it always did. "Forgive my errors and misgivings. I only know what I have been told." He nodded to the darkness and whoever listened inside it. Then he looked back at the lamplight. "This is how I heard it: there was an accident and then there was a war. I don't know what sort of accident it was. Perhaps it was some misunderstanding that got out of hand or someone crossed the wrong wires. For all I know it wasn't an accident at all and some human in the past played a joke only he found funny. Anyhow, that was the reason for the fire flowers."

"What is a fire flower?" Star Swirl's ears swiveled and twitched excitedly. "Is it like a firework? Or literally a flower that is on fire?"

The human looked at him as if he'd forgotten the unicorn was there. This was the first time he had told this story to anyone that could talk back. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that. "I guess it's a little bit like fireworks. But a fire flower burns so much brighter and it is big enough to devour cities whole." He raised his hands against the lantern light, spreading out his hands to craft a quivering silhouette upon the wall in the shape of a blossom. "From a distance that's how they appear blooming against the sky. If there is another name for them I don't know it."

The man wriggled his fingers to make the shadowed petals wave as if caught in a light wind. "Those caught in the light of the flowers died so suddenly they didn't even have time to take their shadows with them. The shadows are still there, etched upon on concrete. When my mother was small, she and my grandmother found a town rich with cans cashed in shelters. The find was an amazing stroke of luck, but shadows ran across the walls of that town, frozen in mid-sprint so they left the place as they found it. It's bad to live in a place like that."

The human waited for Star Swirl to ask another question or give comment, but for once he was quiet.

"That isn't what happened to most of those in the Old World. Only a handful were caught in the light of the flowers, and added with war itself it only took the population of a large city or two. It was a short war and from what I hear it was not as bad as it could have been, whatever that means. What hurt us more was the illness. In those days, humans could go from one end of the Old World to the other in a matter of hours. They did not know it, but their sickness traveled with them."

Star Swirl looked down at the picture of twinkling city lights. "And then came home where they all lived packed together and could spread faster."

"It didn't help our social skills either. That's the version I know but there other rumors of why we are so few. Several small civil wars, tsunamis, a volcano, the wrath of vengeful gods, sterility, a roc of white. All of them are possible but there are two I don't believe: one says the dead climbed out of their graves to eat the living and the other says that some humans boarded starships to sail beyond the moon, leaving the rest of us behind. One is too silly to believe, the other is too awful."

"Which one is which?"

The human shivered under an invisible wind. "I can't decide. But even after all of that, there were plenty of humans to go around. A generation ago, my family traveled with nomads until my grandparents broke away from them to find a permanent place to live. When I was a boy we sent out messenger pigeons to others living far away to learn what was happening in the world. I still remember the protocol for raider attacks. I know how to properly greet new people to the city and how to tell if I can trust them. Last I heard our numbers dwindled but there was still a fair number of us. That was until this spring when I heard there were none of us."

The human cracked the bones in his neck, took a cruller from the basket, and waited for a downpour of questions he had no answer for. The downpour never came. Star Swirl was quiet as an iron city. He had not been shocked into silence, for nothing the human said seemed to surprise him. He'd become fascinated or horror struck perhaps, but never surprised. Instead, he let the scope of what he'd learned settle in his stomach. The unicorn's eyes flashed bright, busy tearing down the edifice of what he knew, yet even busier rebuilding it on the cornerstone of the human's story—a stronger, better foundation.

Eulogies are not really meant for the dead. There is nothing the dead can get from them, only the assurance they were remembered. Eulogies are for closure and to share and appreciate what was no longer there with the one left behind. The human didn't know what the unicorn was doing with what had been told to him, but something was being done. That was enough.

There was still something else to be answered, however. "What about yours, Star Swirl?"

The pony jumped, half expecting a ruler to smack across his hooves for daydreaming again. "Hm? What about my what now?"

"What about your kind? The Old World had a lot of things, but not magic. Not the kind I have seen. There were ponies, but none that talked. Any unicorns the books mentioned were nothing like you at all. I hardly know anything of you or why you are all suddenly here moving clouds and making milkshakes."

"Interesting, we know plenty about you. You're in all sorts of tapestries and scrolls and things, and not all of them take place in Dream Valley, either." Star Swirl's crescent smile glistened. "Our old worlds lived next door to each other, in a way. In the Whistler Records and in all the songs you were but a rainbow away. Some scholars argue the rainbow is symbolic, but anypony with an ounce of sense knows better and anyway those scholars don't accept any version of history that doesn't end with unicorns solving everything."

"What do unicorns in particular have to do with it?"

"Absolutely nothing," Star Swirl laughed. "Only the Pegasi tribe saw your Old World for themselves, for it was wide and strange and very far away. The only way a pony could get there was by strong wings and even stronger hearts. No other way to travel and you absolutely had to have both."

"A strong heart is always useful to have," said the human. "It keeps you moving when others would have laid down to rest."

"'_Where hast thou wandered?_  
_Hither and yonder_  
_And fairest heart t'was my guide_.'" Star Swirl nodded to himself happily as he recited. "I don't believe a human ever came to us without the help of a pegasus."

"But why come to our world at all?"

"We needed you. Or at least we did the first time—maybe the other times as well—this was the earliest time anypony could remember. Perhaps they were some of the first ponies that ever were, or the first who had a story interesting enough to pass were also the first ponies to know darkness, this I know for certain, and the Lord of Midnight Castle was the darkest thing we had ever seen. In fact, he was the darkest thing we would ever see, for nothing so awful has been seen since that day, though plenty tried to best his legacy."

"I still don't see why they would seek out a human," said the human. "Couldn't they have used a dragon or a griffon? You still had those, right?"

All of Star Swirl's muscles tensed and he leaned in close. The light in his eyes shook with the wild delight of the freshly minted idea, in putting something in the world that had never been there before. Star Swirl's front hooves gently pattered out a rhythm. He seemed ready to snatch up his idea and literally run with it.

"That's just the thing! She _wasn't_ sought out! The first pegasus that crossed the rainbow knew not where she was going or whom she was seeking but when her eyes fell upon the human with the long yellow mane she knew. She just _knew_! And she was right. See, this is exactly it! This is exactly what I have been trying to explain to everypony: the Rainbow never takes you where you want to go, but where you need to be. See, that rainbow bridging the world was different; not hoof-crafted from water and air and light, it was... well, it was different! "

The human let Star Swirl have a minute to himself, for there seemed to be too much happening within him at once to sort out. Then he asked, "Did other humans come to you, or was it the one with yellow hair every time?"

"Can I get there by Rainbow's Light?" the unicorn recited. "Yes, there and back again."

"Is that a yes?"

"It is." Star Swirl suppressed the urge to swing into more reeling ballads and his quiet revolution of revelations. "Where was... Right! Other humans. Yes, the yellow haired one— a 'Megan' I believe is the exact term—came across the rainbow many times after, sometimes with another human in tow, having fanciful adventures and what have you. There is a fascinating account of a device they held that caught voices from the air and played them back. What interests me are all the other stories of humans."

The unicorn could hold himself back no longer and began to pace back and forth in the stall, his hooves keeping time with his words. The look Maybelle gave the both of them could have frozen a phoenix but Star Swirl paid her no mind. "None of those stories mention rainbows or those humans even being foreign, though they came from outside the Valley. It is a little hard to sort those histories out. Like the one of the trio of human sorceresses—before you ask, no, I've no idea how a human managed sorcery—and smothered all of Dream Valley in a vile, toxic ooze for no other reason than they found merriment in the sorrow of ponies. There is another of humans spiriting away newborn foals with iron chains, and yet another of a little human who tried to murder a dragonling in cold blood. These are what ponies remember in the dark of night and keep them from staying into the woods. I do not know if the humans in those stories are from your Old World or not."

The human caught a pink unicorn tail before he could run away with another tangent. "Yes, but—sit down before that cow kicks your head in—how does this tie into why or how you ponies are here?"

"I'm on the road to it, no need to run ahead of the cart." Star Swirl waved an unshorn fetlock at him and sat, taking back his tail in a flouncy swish. "The records become misty after the account of the foals in chains. The assumption is that it was shortly after this time the three tribes grew apart."

"And?"

"And Wind Whistler, North Star, and Paradise were all Pegasi and took their writings with them. Aside from those three, the only other true scholar was Lady Galaxy, who did her very best to take account of events but there were so many big things happening in the world and only so much one mare could do. Many other ponies did not think to write down their histories. Her Grace Lady Fizzy was known to roll her eyes at Galaxy's 'flighty hobbies'. For a very long time information traveled by word of mouth alone, the advent of scroll keeping is still fairly new to us. So, to answer your original question, I—that is to say we, as a species—don't... know. For certain."

The human scowled at him.

"Well, what I mean is I don't know for certain. For generations it was assumed humans as a species lived sparse and scattered in a far part of the world, assuming you existed at all. By tales of rainbow travel, the only reasonable explanation was that you had taken root in our world at some point to build your iron towers and craft your iron chains." Star Swirl sat back on his heels and stroked his beard. "But after hearing what you've said to me this night, I think..." He glanced at the human's book, then looked quickly away. "I think... t'was not you who came to our world. I think we came to yours."

Star Swirl's tiny laugh trembled in the dark. "You are the living antithesis of magic; your world in turn must be the same. Or at least used to be. The clouds and land do as we ask them, they are no less magic than we, you know, though they never acted as such in the Valley days." He made the trembling laugh again. "And they say _humans_ shift landscapes!"

The human rubbed his temples with a sigh. It was really too late at night for this. "And you came here because?"

"Well...I've a guess. Mind, 'tis only a theory, but you seem eager to take what you can get. If the rainbow bridges gaps between words and brings you where you need to go and if it only works when a heart aches enough, then somepony must have truly wanted to come here. That or one from your Old World wanted to come to ours instead. It sounds as if you'd have plenty reason to seek our help out. It could have been a reversal of our first meeting and I know for certain the Megan went back to her home, which must have been here. The Rainbow bridge no longer exists, it could have snapped under the strain of everypony coming over at once. Or perhaps it did not break, but bent to bring both worlds together. Two planes, one sitting atop the other one until both became one in the same, not unlike a pair of small soap bubbles becoming one large one."

"Ah," said the human who couldn't think of a better response. "That makes…sense, I suppose." Always with the magic bubbles, these unicorns.

"That would explain the expanse of magic in an unmagical world. Ponies can do a number of things, but I doubt even we could reform an entire world without realizing it. Yes. Yes, I much prefer that to the other idea and besides if there were some grand migration somepony would have mentioned it somewhere, lack of writings or... or, um… or..."

The unicorn stamped in frustration as his words unraveled and rolled away from him. He blinked, looking about the barn as if seeing it for the first time. He looked at the basket he had struggled to balance, at the glow that came from the lantern and not from his horn, and then he looked at the human towering above him. The light in Star Swirl's eyes had burnt itself out and left him in a dark place. "Or I'm moonstruck and in far o'er my own hollow horned head." Star Swirl sank into the hay under the pressure of things ugly and unseen. "I'm sorry. You deserve a greater unicorn to help you."

The human watched him, unsure where this sudden wave of misery had come from and wished he knew how to make the fireflies come back into the lantern. In times like these it was useful to say something supportive. "Well, magic is creepy and weird anyway and it makes me feel all anxious inside. Does that help?"

"It does not." Star Swirl rolled out of the hay, chewed some, then swallowed it. "But it was kind of you to try." His ears pricked suddenly and he wildly looked around. "Wait a moment, do you hear something?"

"No?"

"Exactly. No jingles." The soothsayer looked down at the clasp of his cape where a lonely string tapered off and frayed just like his theories. His bell twinkled in the straw a few inches away. "Marvelous. Now I have to find somepony with a sewing mark, presuming one even lives in a dessert to—what are you doing?"

The man squinted over an awkward fistful of cape, "Stop moving around so much." In the other hand he held a shining needle and a bit of white thread. Before the unicorn had time to finish asking what the human was doing the bell was halfway sewn back in place. "Thread doesn't really match," he murmured to himself. "It will have to do for now. Maybe someone else can cover it up with a patch or something. Little moons and stars, something cute like that, I don't know."

Star Swirl shook out an experimental jingle. "Not as loud as it used to be..."

"Good." Satisfied, the human snuggled back down under the deer cloak and fluffed his pillow. "What's so important about a bell anyway?"

"Oh, just for a...um...a spell. That I cast."

"But I thought you said—"

The unicorn held up a hoof. "**A** spell. The only one I have ever managed and I have only ever done it once."

"And it was?"

Star Swirl hunched his shoulders and fussed at his little pink beard. "Well, I... um. I traveled through time. Several decades from now." He flinched at the last word, bracing himself for laughter or worse, a condescending smile. When he heard nothing, he cautioned a look.

The human did not smile at him, only blinked in confusion. "Time travel is a... bad thing to do?"

"Well no, not exactly, but the morality of this spell's far and away from anypony's proper judgment when one takes into account the novelty and— wait. You actually believe me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" The human shrugged as he cozied himself into a sleeping position. "It sounds bizarre but what doesn't out here? I've never heard of such a thing but I have never heard of manufactured rainstorms either. Did you see anything interesting in the future?"

"Lots of snow. More snow than a winter ought to have. No...no, come to think of it, it was not winter it was spring. Or should have been." He yawned, a consequence of his habit for late nights and the human's early mornings. It had also been over a day since he last slept. "And I saw some ponies traveling away from the castle where I stood. Oh, and something was howling or moaning or something. The wind, probably."

The soothsayer shook more hay from his mane. "I think we are both too tired to dwell on it. I will see you in the sunlight." He gathered up the lantern and quietly shut the stable door. "By the by, do you think there was something to that ramble from before? The bubbles and rainbows and such?"

"I suppose I do," yawned a voice in the dark. "You seemed so sure of it." If Star Swirl had anything to say to that the human did not hear, for he was already half asleep.


	7. The Molassas Morning

It had been a peculiar morning for Honey Glaze and she did not yet know if this was a good thing or not. In her experience as a veterinarian and a Conemaran she had developed a talent for diagnosing patterns in peculiarities. She also knew that when oddities came to this town, they came either in the morning or the evening.

Honey Glaze favored the peculiar evenings because even if the oddity was not in her favor, she could go to bed soon after. Ill tidings that worried her at night always looked a little better in the morning. Mornings existed to set right what was once wrong, that was the way of the world.

But a peculiar morning, now _that_ was a thing to be wary of. Whatever odd thing happened in the morning meant that whatever happened would be with her for the remainder of the day just like spilled molasses; difficult to clean up and sticking to everything it touched. A molasses morning could stick to her for weeks or longer.

As Honey Glaze brushed her mane, tied her bonnet, and adjusted her apron she held on to hope this peculiar morning would somehow be in their favor. A pleasant surprise like an extra shipment of frosting, the pegasus tribe delivering extra rain, or that the cow with a twisted foot made a speedy recovery. That hope dimmed as soon as she came downstairs.

The First Oddity: Lickety Split was nowhere to be found.

Honey had awoken to an empty bed and empty house, which was odd enough, but to discover an empty, spotless kitchen with no sign of breakfast was cause for alarm. There was no trace of dirty dishes, no disturbed cabinets, no lingering smell of pancakes or pies, and Honey Glaze ate her donuts and oatmeal all alone. This meant one of two things: either Lickety Split woke up uncharacteristically early, politely eaten breakfast with careful intent to leave the kitchen spotless and dashed away for an early workday, or something had happened. Something important enough to wake before the cockerel, forsake her pie à la mode, and go into town all without waking Honey up. Only once before a morning began this way. That was the morning the east fields had frozen over two years ago. A missing mayor did not bode well.

The Second Oddity: The sky was different.

This morning was not blue, nor was it light grey, nor a soft pastel dawn, but a crossroad between these things. The film of clouds was just enough to grey the sky, yet the sun shone through just the same. The Conemara waiting for Honey Glaze was bathed a steady yellow hue, as if the town were trapped in amber. The mare had to admit it was very pretty, but still peculiar.

The Third Oddity: The dog, or lack thereof.

Peter did not come waggling to greet her with a lolling, slimy tongue and baying as if Honey had been gone a year instead of just a night. With the absence of Lickety Split, this may not have been unusual, for the mayor may have simply taken her beagle with her into town. But the bowl of food from last night was untouched and though the wet ground near the house was full of hoofprints, no paw prints ran beside them.

Along with this trio of oddities was the fact that Honey Glaze had virtually nothing to do. No appointments were scheduled until late afternoon, no real baking could be done until tomorrow when her brother delivered more flour (the last of it went to feed the visiting unicorn and his sasquatch) and she could not assist the mayor when the mayor wasn't here. That only left tending to the cow, sweeping the walk, then seeking or waiting for something to do. Honey frowned at the thought. Free time was for Saturday evenings and harvest festivals, not mornings in the middle of the week when there should be work to do. With the absence of Splits and Pete, however, she welcomed the chance to search for them. But first things first.

"Good morrow, Maybelle!" she called out, opening the barn door. "Did you sleep well?"

The Jersey peered over the door of her stall, a scowl wrinkling her soft face and bags under her eyes.

"Oh, my. I guess not. What's the trouble, dear?" The mare opened the stall door and stepped aside politely, as if escorting a noblemare from a carriage, for Maybelle practically was.

In a place famed for desserts, cows were the city's lifeblood. Their milk went to cakes, chocolates, pastries, and the best ice cream in the Nation, all in exchange for a graze in Conemara's famous feathergrass fields and a warm barn to sleep in. The grass was carefully tended for the cows as much as for wealthy foreign ponies. More, in fact. Cows gave them their way of life but all the unicorns had to offer was coin and trouble

The look on Maybelle's face and the aristocratic flips of her tail as they walked affirmed Honey Glaze's suspicions. This was a molasses morning for certain.

"No milk today, I expect."

"Not until tomorrow at least. All night with the talking and the lantern light and the running all about the stall. You'd think the both of them hens the way they went on. I lost at least two hours of my beauty sleep thanks to all that chatter from the bearded hollow horn and his pet… whatever."

"Maybelle!" Honey looked about to affirm nopony had heard. "I understand you had a difficult time last night but that's no reason to call the lad names. You ought to be ashamed."

"Well, he _is_." The cow at least had the manners to lower her voice like a decent gossip. "I saw him juggle a pillow, a blanket, a lantern, and a full basket of goods when he came in. Fumbled with every door, almost dropped the kit and caboodle twice and he didn't levitate a thing, not one. He practically admitted to it himself. I heard him."

Honey Glaze frowned. "That—"

The subject of interest sat just outside the front lawn where the unicorn had set up a little table busking fortunes with scrolls and star charts. Odd to do this sort of thing so early. They passed his line of sight in the quiet stalk of gossips with eyes averted elsewhere.

Out of hearing range the mare continued, "That is still no reason to call him hollow. You wouldn't call an earth pony with a ruined leg 'lame', would you? Of course not." She glanced over Maybelle's shoulder at the pink maned stallion in front of the house. "I'm sure the poor dear tries his best. Speaking of which, I should see to his ape. If you'll excuse me."

"I'll see you, Hon."

Rudeness of calling it out aside, the fact that the bearded lad bore no magic made a great deal of sense. Lickety Split may not have been wrong last night when she assumed he was a noblecolt, but judging by his current lot in life, his bloodline didn't matter much now. It certainly explained why the unicorn had been so polite in their presence and why he spent the night talking to his ape. He must not have many ponies to talk with. The whole thing was a little sad, now that she thought about it. As she made her way back to the barn, Honey Glaze considered inviting the fellow to lunch, assuming Splits had no issue with it. When she finally found her, anyway.

"Peter! Well, what are you doing in here, fella?"

That was one mystery solved at least. Pete must have wandered through the barn door while Maybelle went to pasture. He lingered outside the stall housing the sasquatch and the way he was standing a pony could have mistaken him for a pointer rather than a beagle. Peter stood stiff and silent and he didn't seem to notice Honey Glaze at all, even when she whistled at him. He watched the stall the way he watched the front gate waiting for Lickety Split to come home.

"You doing alright there, Pete?"

A floppy ear made a little twitch. At least he hadn't gone deaf. Honey peered inside the stall where the bald sasquatch stared back worriedly, he likely sensed the dog staring holes into him from the other side. Honey made sure to put Pete (who was quite opposed to the idea) in an Maybelle's stall so the ape could go back to its master without worry of heels getting nipped.

It took a few moments before the creature seemed fully convinced the dog was not going to bother him and he came out of the stall. At least he looked better fed; the basket of baked goods seemed to have done the trick. In fact, the sasquatch looked so well Honey began to wonder if it was ill at all. Despite the lack of fur, the skin seemed in good health—no splotching, no redness, no cracks, no blisters—the oatmeal bath should have helped the skin condition, but not to this extent. The swath of black fur atop his head had a healthy shine. Curled, silky fur was strange for a sasquatch, yet the curls seemed natural. Muscle tone was good for an animal confined to a small cage and for something from the Medley of Marvelous Monsters he looked fantastic. Either stargazer must have taken good care of him after stealing away or the Showmaster never got to break him in proper. But if that was the case, why was it so tame? Had the unicorn bottle fed it?

And the bone structure was... off. The night before, she wrote it off as a symptom of the ape's mysterious illness, but looking at him now that explanation seemed unlikely. The sasquatch's stride was easy and unhindered by the freakishly small feet and rail-straight spine. Was it simply accustomed to its bizarre proportions? Was this perhaps some subspecies she didn't know of?

"If only I knew a scholar in the ways of primates," Honey sighed. The sasquatch looked down at the sound of her voice and she smiled back at him. "You're so well behaved it's no wonder your master doesn't keep you on a leash. What a nice fellow."

The ape blinked slowly and sighed. If Honey Glaze didn't know any better, she could have sworn it rolled its eyes at her.

Honey Glaze turned the ape loose in a tree not from where its master sat yawning and fawning over his charts. Upon closer inspection, there were more than star charts in front of the unicorn. There was a humble array of scrolls, broken quills, and ink jars spread about him as he furiously (and awkwardly) filled scroll after scroll with illegible mouthwriting. His eyes flitted back and forth from his writings and a most unusual scroll with rectangular, glossy parchment. Inky freckles splattered across his nose in black constellations.

"A bit bright to be casting fortunes by stars," mused Honey.

"Just one star to see by, but 'tis enough." The lad glanced at her, then at the tree behind him. The sasquatch in the branches nodded to him in a way that made something twitch in Honey's hooves. "Thank you for fetching him, ma'am."

"No trouble." The longer Honey watched the ape in the tree the greater the twitch in her hooves became. Something about all of this was odd. Not the molasses sort of odd, this was different, this was new somehow. "...Interesting manner of creature, that one."

"That is certainly one way of putting it." The stargazer seemed as if he meant to follow that statement with something else, but be went back to his scrawls and was silent.

Honey Glaze was more than glad to leave him to his work. She might have lingered all day staring at that tree like a lackwit and this morning had more pressing matters than a stargazer's ape.

For once the morning's strangeness worked in her favor. An unscheduled drizzle happened sometime during the night and the wet ground still kept the prints of every creature that stepped upon it. Lickety Split's distinct hoofprints—only the mayor's shoes had those indents—led her up and out of residentials and into the shopping district. The hoofprints were lost in the midst of Conemara citizens and visitors here, but at least here she could ask around.

"Honey!" The voice reached her before the pony did, as always. A cream coated mare with a mane all red and white barber pole stripes dashed to her side. A tin whistle clinked against the buttons of her messenger vest as she trotted in place, the closest thing messenger ponies ever came to stopping. This was not Toot Sweet's usual route. It wasn't even her district. She must have been looking for Honey specifically. More molasses.

"G'morrow, Honey Glaze. I'm so so sorry to be a bother, I know you must be terribly busy what with the mayor's work and the sick shorthorns and all, but—" she took a great gulp of air. "But have you seen Flo at all this morning? I woke up and she was gone and I know you told me to make doubly sure my gate was locked and Honey, I _swear_ I locked it. Only now I'm not so sure and I don't have time to look for her with all the work today, and...and just, have you seen my hound?"

"Toot Sweet, I _told_ you to give that dog more exercise so this sort of this wouldn't happen anymore."

"No, but I did! She ran with me all day yesterday, don't you recall?"

Honey considered this and frowned. Toot Sweet was right; she and her greyhound passed by the house yesterday morning and then again at lunchtime. In addition, Honey was sure she'd seen the tall gate at Toot's place locked good and tight. There was no way a tired greyhound should have been able to jump that gate. Another peculiarity.

"No, I haven't seen Flo today. I only just got here but I'll surely alert you if I see her, Toots. Oh! Hold a moment, have you seen Mayor Lickety Split about town? I can't find her."

"Things are misplaced all over, it seems." Toot Sweet wheeled about and down the street. "She was round about town hall when I saw her last.

Mayor Lickety Split IV was under the awning of town hall, not far from the statue of Conemara's founders, Gingerbread and Crème Brûlée. A basket of emerald feathergrass sat next to her and she wore her very best hat, the one made of taffeta and lace and an ornamental custard sitting on top. Lickety Split was not tied up in tragic chaos, nor cowering under a catastrophe, nor did she duel with some disastrous debacle. In fact, she sat happy-as-you-please, eating a cheese danish.

Honey sighed. Wearing such a formal hat was cause for concern, as were the bags under her eyes, but if the mayor still found time for breakfast then whatever had happened couldn't have been a total disaster.

"A-ha, so _here_ you are!" A less professional part of Honey Glaze delighted in a proper scolding, the happy sort born of averted catastrophes. "Have you any idea what you've put me through this morning? Miss Mayor Lickety Split IV just what do you think you're doing at—"

"At work?" Splits coolly licked a bit of cheese from her hoof. "Aren't you the one constantly fussing I ought to start my day earlier?"

"Don't you turn this on me, madam, this situation is not at all what I meant and you know it. I meant for you to keep schedule, not run pell-mell all about town without telling anypony." Being in public was the only thing keeping Honey's voice in check. "No note, no goodbye or anything. I swear, your head is emptier than a bubble in broth. I awoke and I did not know where you were. Things were out of sorts. It was... cause for concern."

A sly crumb of a smile winked the corners of the mayor's mouth. "You were worried for me."

"I was nothing of the sort." Honey Glaze readjusted her spectacles and gave an indignant, professional humph. "It was simply a matter of noting a derision from your normal habits. Had something happened to you, it would be detrimental to the city of Conemara as well as my job. You _are_ the mayor after all. What concerns you concerns us all. That is all there is to it."

"Your nose is too pretty to stick up in the air like a unicorn. You should bring it down to earth where it is appreciated."

"You are a slovenly, foolish, gluttonous politician and nopony will ever love you. It is a marvel you were reelected."

"Whatever you say, honey bunch." Lickety Split was quiet for some time after that. She watched the lazy bustle of Conemara, nodding her head and gently waving hello to ponies strolling by. "Lady Sundance and her stewards came by the house this morning."

The mayor's voice stayed sweet, but the gravity of her words had a bitter aftertaste. Her smile stiffened. A pony without Honey's attention to detail wouldn't have noticed the change at all. Regardless of Splits' haphazard habits, Honey admired the mayor's exceptional talent for smooth facades. "The Lady is of the Sun Circle, so it's only natural the old nag was at our door before dawn."

Honey Glaze blinked. Her tail gave a nervous flick. "I see. I expect there was an incident?"

"But of course, dear. Only the most dire of developments." She gave a laugh empty of laughter. "She needed three crates of grass to supply House Gusty's mid-summer ball."

"But handling grass is Zoysia and Topiary's department, not the mayor's."

"Tell Lady Sundance that." The sides of Lickety Split's mouth twisted and bent into something like a frown. It lasted a second or two before it wrenched back into her pleasant smile. "It seems ensuring that the citizens of Conemara stand fair distance from proper noblemares falls under my jurisdiction too. So does the number of mice in town, the dirt upon the roads, the shininess of the windows, and the scuffing of hoof polish. Not to mention the unscheduled drizzling this morning, even though weather is entirely out of my control. It has been an _educational_ morning." She finished the danish with a fearsome bite.

The mayor looked to her aide and her eyes softened. "I didn't wake you because I know how out-of-sorts you get over this kind of thing."

Honey grinned in spite of herself. "Unicorns or out-of-place mornings?"

"Both." Splits turned to her aide with the smile that was Honey's favorite. A real one. "I'm glad you came to seek me out, Hon. I needed the company."

"Yes, well. I am not entirely unfond of your company either." She smoothed out a rumple her brown, coiffed tail. "Is Lady Sundance still here? Is that the reason for the basket of feather grass?"

"That, honeybunch, is Honey's brunch." The mayor grinned, proud of her wordplay. "Or early afternoon snack, whichever you prefer. Consider it—don't roll your eyes, that was a good joke and you know it—consider it a part of your birthday surprise."

"...My birthday is half a month away, Lickety Split."

"That is what makes it a surprise. Also, there was a surplus in Zoysia's delivery."

Honey arched an eyebrow. "Odd that Sundance didn't just take the extra grass. A basket is hardly a dollop in the honey jar." That said, there shouldn't have been any runoff at all. Grass measurements, in fact the quality of feathergrass in general, had dropped after Topsoil left. Two ponies overlooking the heart and soul of Conemara was not enough.

"She wanted three crates, no more and no less. Why anypony would refuse extra grass is beyond me, but who can figure out the unicorns? Come, let's take our brunch at home for some rest. Don't give that look, now. If you really had work to do, you would be doing it. Am I wrong?"

Honey Glaze sighed and agreed. Molasses aside, there was nothing that couldn't wait an hour and it had been a stressful morning for both of them. And it hurt her to see the joyless rock candy grin Splits must have held for hours. It would be wise to rest a while at home, where the mayor was free to frown and grouse all she pleased.

The walk home smoothed out Splits' mood and soon she was back to her usual chaff and chatter. "A basket of feather grass is just what you need, Hon. You're already the thinnest thing in Conemara, aside from the messengers. The way you carry on, you'll worry yourself down to a skeleton and I much prefer you die a little death than a big one."

Honey Glaze snorted. "Off with you and your spring talk. I ought to kick you into a barn."

"How fortunate we need our barns whole, then!" As they came into the residential district, she swiveled her ears curiously. "Seems awful quiet this morning. No barking from the Pizzelle place."

"About that. I don't mind a short brunch but I must away soon after. There have been numerous complaints this morning concerning the—"

"Good gaufrette! Oh, on my word, what is that?!"

Honey looked ahead; her heart sank to her stomach. The itch in her hooves came back with a vengeance. "That," she said, "Is the answer to a question all Conemara's been asking."

There, in the front yard, in Lickety Splits' favorite maple tree, sat the stargazer's ape. He sat on the highest branch that could support his weight, feet carefully tucked underneath him, ready to scramble away if he had to. He gripped a gnarled branch that was longer than the sasquatch was tall. It was unusually smooth for a branch broken off a tree, almost as if it had been whittled smooth.

Below him sat every dog in town.

Flo, Toot Sweet's greyhound, stretched out on the tree roots as if it were a rug by the hearth. Lickety Splits' beagle, Peter, was next to her, front paws on the tree trunk, staring intently. Apple Drops' setter circled the trunk as if he would find a stairway hidden somewhere. Jude and Benedict and Timothy and four stray mongrels with no name sat patiently in the dappled shadows. Bingley, Pizzelle's pomeranian, stared up with tiny, glittering eyes. The Treacles' corgi bounced on stubby legs, he didn't seem to understand that the branches were too high to reach. He was in the yawning shadow of Shortcake's great dane, who actually could have reached the lower branches if he tried. The only dog missing was Nougat's collie, who was away in Hoofshire for the cowdog trials.

They gathered in quiet congress under the maple tree and wagged their tails as the sasquatch glared down at them. The ape's mouth pulled back in a worried grimace when they moved.

Lickety Split pursed her lips and tilted her head. "Huh. What do you make of it?"

Honey Glaze just stared. The itchy feeling in her hooves began to spread, slithering out and over her hooves and into her pastern to made itself at home betwixt carpus and cannon bone. It was as if she ground was shifting beneath her. The soft, beautiful feathergrass suddenly felt... wrong. She wondered if she ought to run, though she'd no logical reason to do so. Where was this feeling coming from? Why did she feel like a foreigner in her hometown? Honey did not feel like herself in the presence of the stargazer's ape. She did not like the way it held the attention of the hounds tighter than any leash or lead. It suddenly occurred to her that the average sasquatch was too heavy to climb maple trees.

"Must be full of food, I s'pose."

Honey Glaze jolted. "What?"

Lickety Split inclined a hoof toward the bag fastened to the ape's back. "The parcel he's carrying for his master. It must have food inside."

"Oh. Yes. That makes sense, I guess."

"Hon? Are you feeling alright? You look like you've seen a hydra in your bed."

"I'm perfectly alright," she lied. "I only wonder where the bearded lad's gone."

"Fine thing to wonder, that." Lickety Split flattened her ears and looked around the yard. "He's the one that owns the beast causing all this hound harassment."

As if the mayor had summoned him with an incantation, the young stallion approached the house, jingling and tinkling with his bells and little bag of tricks. He did not seem to notice the stink eye from the mayor, nor Honey's unease, nor his ape's distress. His eyes were bright and his canter merry, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary at all. The unicorn put down his bag, taking out his ink and scrolls. Then he removed a quill from behind his ear, smiled at his ape sitting in the maple and said, "There, I told you I wouldn't be long."

The ape made a little huff at him.

"I'll grant it took a wee bit longer than I expected, but there was a line and the clerk had to look in the backroom to find inks that did not smudge. I cannot write with inks that smudge."

The ape gripped the tree trunk and made a low hooting sound.

"Well… no, not exactly." When the ape made another hoot and gestured with his stick, the unicorn continued, "Don't be silly, they'll do nothing of the sort. Look how the hounds wag their tails, it means they like you."

The ape grunted.

"I'm not, either!" The unicorn pointed a blue hoof at Flo. "These are tame, you are thinking of feral dogs. There is a difference." He twitched an ear as the ape made low grunt. "Of course I will, what sort of pony do you take me for?"

The mayor raised an eyebrow. "Hon, do you suppose the bearded lad's touched in the head?"

Honey Glaze pressed closer to Lickety Split. As the unicorn spoke to his ape, the uncomfortable buzz in her legs wormed into her ribcage. Her common sense circled the wagons with an arsenal of rationalizations for what they were seeing. "There's nothing odd about talking to pets. Perhaps his gift is in animal communication."

"I never heard a pony talk to his pet as if the pet talked back. And if his gift was in animal work, why is his mark of stars? I still say he's touched. I don't honestly care either way, I just want these dogs off my lawn." Splits raised her head and brought up her administrative voice, the one reserved for courthouses and elections. "Here, lad! Your animal's disrupting the peace, not to mention my yard."

"I saw!" The unicorn's pink beard stretched to meet his ears as he beamed at them. "Is it not fascinating? There were but two dogs when I left to fetch more ink half an hour ago, now that number's quadrupled. Oh—my mistake, there are four more on the other side! Sun and stars, has anypony ever seen a thing so strange?"

Honey Glaze meant to demand the stargazer take these matters seriously and harshly chastise his irresponsibility with his creatures, not to mention leaving the gate open. Instead, the anxiety in her chest shrank her voice as she asked, "Why they are doing this? Are you the one who's done this?"  
_Please say that you are. Give me a rational answer. Say you've enchanted our town from malice or incompetence. Tell me I am imagining things._

"I have absolutely no idea, but I can tell you it's nothing I've done." The stargazer looked back to the tree. The ape glowered down at him and it stole the wind from the unicorn's sails. The way he cowed under its gaze, it was like he didn't own the ape at all. It almost seemed the other way around. With more sobriety the lad said, "I'd like to get him down myself, we have places to go. But whenever my sasquatch moves, the dogs go into a state and make him frightened to come down."

Lickety Split, who'd quite enough of this nonsense and worried for Honey's well-being, rounded on the unicorn with a voice normally reserved for ruffians loitering about the salt house. "Now, see here—"

She was interrupted by the sound a tin whistle. A long, high note drifting over the rooftop followed by three shorter notes. Toot Sweet was announcing an arrival.

"Oh, black rot and fireblight! Now what?"

Honey Glaze, glad for the distraction, pricked her ears. The cows in the north pasture were upset. There were hoofbeats. They were too light to be ponies, but moved too quickly to be goats or sheep. "The Company is coming."

Lickety Split sighed. "I suppose we better meet them and send them on their way." She readjusted her custard hat, shined her pin, and walked out into the middle of the road. Honey Glaze swallowed down the distress from the stargazer's ape, shook out the twitching in her hooves, and held her head high as she took her place a few feet behind the mayor, ready to be of assistance. Molasses morning or no molasses morning, there was still protocol to follow. Any sign of unrest might convince the Company that Conemara needed their help, and that was the last thing anypony needed.

The Hartfelt Company always arrived unscheduled, but today was the first time they arrived in near silence. Usually they ran and danced along with dogs baying at their heels or yapping from the fences as the deer made merry. But of course there was none of that today. If Toot Sweet hadn't whistled, the town would have been taken completely by surprise.

Honey spared a glance back towards the tree. The dogs sensed the harts approaching and their muscles tightened and bunched under their fur. Peter's nose twitched at the scent, poodle whined, and the greyhound fidgeted on her paws like a foal in want of an outhouse. But none of them moved from their spot.

It wasn't long before a quartet of deer—two hinds, a stag, and a yearling just growing into his horns—leapt over the horizon and into the residential district. They elegantly bounded over trade carts smoothly weaved around lampposts, every move they made smooth, stylish, and expertly coordinated. A practical ballet of cervines danced along the road, all song and laughter. (If Honey hadn't seen this routine thrice before she might have been impressed.)

The Company might have carried on this way for another ten minutes, but Mayor Lickety Split IV was not in the mood for antlered antics. The soft rolls of her face hardened into a business mare's firm but friendly gaze. Her approach, bedecked in hard smiles and gleaming mayoral pins, stopped the company in mid-frolic. The yearling was only a few inches taller than most ponies, but the pair of does and the muscled stag towered two feet over the mayor. The round little pony in the custard hat held them with her eyes as surely as the stargazer's ape held the dogs.

The mayor snorted and dug her back hooves into the dirt. "Look here. There's no reason for the lot of you to come storming in here with all your fuss and folderol. We earth ponies work for a living and not all of us work in the daytime and I will _not_ have the night shift in my town set askew because you can't come in to town like decent folk."

The stag stepped to the forefront and stretched his muscled neck down to meet Lickety Split at eye level. "Oh, the fair mayor mare is all a-nettled! It seems something has upset the happy fettle here in Conemara town."

"Save the poetry for your head hart and hinds, Dogwood. I am in no mood." Splits looked over the hinds flanking the stag and the yearling peeking out behind them. "I see the Knave hasn't come today."

"The wildwood needed his attention," said the yearling.

"We've partly come to mention is there have been attercop about," said a hind. "But if you like, we could fetch him?"

"That shan't be necessary, Larch," said Honey Glaze. "However you can tell him to properly organize when his Company comes to call. It really is too early in the day for this."

Dogwood lifted his head to show off his sixteen point antlers in the sunlight. "No such thing, miss. For fair harts every hour of every day sings us to fly upon the air and make lark with Aspen and Larch."

Larch piped up, "But if our antics here antagonize these emerald fields where fair Conemara lies and cause sweet Honey there to criticize, then on The Knave's behalf, we four do apologize."

Honey Glaze sighed, "It really isn't necessary for you to come into town like this. Out in your wildwood you do plenty for us, shooing off various troublesome creatures and the like."

Dogwood scowled. "Perhaps, but what of the oppression lay heavily upon your shoulders? How else could we be sure the tyrannical Unicorn Kingdom in the south does not overtax or impose upon you?" Larch and Aspen nodded. The yearling seemed more interested in the fields of feathergrass than discussing systematic oppression of the working class.

Honey smiled her sweetest, most comforting smile. "You think too little of yourselves. Why, the Company scared off a party of haughty aristocrats just this morning, didn't they Splits?"

"Absolutely true, Honey. Caused a grand amount of trouble with their oppressive taxes, monopolies, wearing their monocles and…such. Ah, but you can be certain that upon mere mention of the Knave of Harts their tune changed quick as a wink."

The deer looked at each other. Dogwood preened like a cockerel. "Truly?" Larch's chest swelled, Aspen smiled, and the yearling blinked.

Lickety Splits' voice because syrupy sweet, "For real and for true. Without careful watch of the Knave's Hartfelt Company all Conemara would be crushed under the iron hoof of King Mohs."

Honey Glaze nodded serenely. "Our kith and kin will sleep soundly tonight. Bless your hearts."

"Ah, our harts are fully blessed already in the glen of the wildwood, miss," said Dogwood, looking at the feathergrass basket. "Though there is better recompense for our vigilance…"

Good. The sooner the Company was paid, the sooner they could leave before they had the chance to cause any more trouble. It was a shame to lose a promising brunch but it was better to lose a grass basket than risk a rebellious deer wandering into the shopping district. Honey Glaze didn't know what they would do upon actually meeting unicorn aristocrats, but the result would be a serious drop in business from the Kingdom at the very least. Best they take their pay and head back to—

"O-ho! What's this skulking in the shadow of madam mayor's residence?" The yearling pointed his stubby antlers to where the stargazing unicorn took his notes. His comrades pooled around him and soon the bearded fellow was surrounded. Not that he seemed to notice, wrapped up as he was in his scrawls and scribblings.

"Hmm. Tis a puzzle from young Douglas Fir." A smooth grin trailed on Larch's face as she circled the stargazer. "Praytell, what earth pony born sports frail frame and spiraling horn? How strange, how odd, and yet of the earth he must be, for t'was Conemara that sent thee."

Aspen, the smaller hind, giggled, "He jingles like chimes on the wind and feathers in his mouth doth show. Mayhap of late he's eaten crow?"

"Nay, fair hinds!" crowed the stag. "Behold the merry pink upon his face, of grass and sweets there are no trace. An earthen pony he cannot be; thus a son of a nanny goat is what we see!"

The yearling frowned. "Um. I'm pretty sure that's a unicorn."

The other three deer turned as one to glare at him.

The yearling trailed a cloven hoof in the dirt. "Well, he _does_."

"It's called a colorful insult, Douglass," Larch sighed. "Good job ruining the meter, by the way."

"Well, I didn't know!"

"How? Almost everything we just said was iambic pentameter!" cried Aspen.

"That's what comes of missing rehearsal. Now the whole thing's a rot. Hope you're proud of yourself, Douglas Fir." Dogwood stamped with a delicate fore hoof, "We finally get the chance to demonstrate the wildness of the wildwood and you trip over the metrical foot."

"Actually," said the unicorn, "That wasn't even close to iambic pentameter. Those were couplets."

Larch glared down at him. "I don't believe anyone asked your opinion."

"And I didn't give one. It is not a matter of opinion, it is a fact. Those were couplets in form and rhyme pattern." He took a step backward, more to look the doe in the face than from intimidation. "But if it helps, they were decent couplets."

"Decent?" Larch twitched her ears unhappily. "Just decent?"

"What was the matter with them?" asked Douglas Fir.

"Well, it's not so much that your poetry is bad, it's just that it isn't...very...good?" His words meekly trailed off as the harts drew in closer. He lowered his ears, eying the hard hooves and sharp tines surrounding him. "But, um. You know, it is really all but a matter of opiNION!"

With a dip of the head and a nudge from Larch and young Douglas Fir, the unicorn was scooped into the cups of Dogwood's antlers. His legs draped over the stag's head like bony blue streamers. "Put me down!" He flailed and kicked out until Dogwood violently jostled him still.

"I wouldn't do that, blue blooded critic. These tines of mine come long and sharp. And heavy." The stag chuckled darkly. "Hate to think what'd happen if you fell off in mid stride."

"Tis a long way down," added Aspen. "And even if you don't break your legs, do you think you can wink off before you get trampled? Then again, maybe you're faster than you look. Would you care to find out?"

The stargazer stared at the ground far below him and tucked in his hooves. His mouth rumpled into a frown and groaned, more frustrated than afraid. He stretched his neck towards the maple in the mayor's yard.

The bald ape, transfixed at the harts since Dogwood recited his first line, jolted and hopped to a low branch. The dozen dogs instantly whipped into a frenzy of barking and frightened the creature back into the higher branches. The ape met its master's eye and furrowed its brow.

The deer were already making move to leave, as Aspen took up the basket of grass and Dogwood paced about the road, getting used to the added weight on his head. The commotion from so many hounds made the company a bit nervous.

"We can always meet up later." The unicorn managed to keep a note optimism in his voice. His ape just frowned harder.

"Nay, little critic," said Larch. "Later doesn't fit our schedule. Methinks you'll be meeting the rest of the company right now. The Knave of Hearts is aching to meet you, I'm sure." The hind reared with a laugh and leap. "To the Wildwood hills, fair harts, to the hills! Yoiks and away!"

The four followed suit and in their perfectly choreographed leaps and bounds— though imperfectly executed, for Dogwood struggled to hold his head high under the added weight—they ran down the path to where their woodland waited for them.

Honey Glaze watched parade of cervines and the squirming unicorn in Dogwood's antlers. She tapped a hoof and sighed to herself.

The colder, practical part of her assured that it was better to let the harts have their fun. The unicorn and the satisfaction of sedition would entertain them for quite some time and it put them back in their woodland, far away from any unicorn with actual power. She shuddered to think what could happen if the Company met the likes of Lady Sundance.

But a more sentimental part of her noted there was very little honor in abandoning a pony with a hollow horn who could hardly defend himself — let alone one of the few unicorns to actually thank a Conemaran for their hospitality.

"Shall we set out after him, Splits? Or perhaps send word to the Kingdom of what's happened to him?"

"Send to who? We've no idea where the lad's from. He never even told us his name." The mayor shrugged her soft shoulders. "Besides, the fate of a unicorn is no business of ours. It's enough we work all day feeding their fancy parties to get sneers and scoffs as thank you. We won't be their guards too. The harts are hardly worth such worry anyway. The lad will be fine, I'm sure. The Knave favors bluster over bruises."

"Yes, but they've never successfully hassled a unicorn before. Can we be quite sure nothing grave will happen to him?"

Lickety Split IV shrugged again. "Meh."

The mayor sent for Toot Sweet to retrieve a very upset greyhound and send word to the owners of the other dogs. None of them left easy. Many had to be dragged off and almost all of them hollered and cried and whined and wailed the whole way. In her seven years as a veterinarian Honey Glaze never heard animals make such awful sounds. The dogs were back in their yards and homes before suppertime and most of Conemara was content once more. Most, but not all.

It must have climbed down after Shortcake and the Treacles came by, when she was busy looking for signs of the corgi's ringworm. As she passed the empty maple tree, Honey stared at the ugly criss-crossing claw-marks scarring Lickety Split's beautiful feathergrass lawn. She met Peter by the front gate, where the miserable beagle rested his head on his paws.

The bald ape crouched on the other side of the padlocked gate. He poked at the Company's cloven hoofprints pressed into the dirt with his left paw while propping himself up with the stick held in his right. The stargazer's ape stood up again with a spine too straight and feet too small for a sasquatch, glanced back at her with eyes that knew more than they ought. Then he slung the grey bag over his back and followed the trail down into the Knave's wildwood.

Honey Glaze sighed and stroked the whimpering beagle behind the ears with a twitching, itching hoof. She didn't know if it was for the dog's comfort or hers. "You're a good dog, Pete." Together they watched the stargazer's ape until he vanished from view.

* * *

The ponies of Conemara spoke of it for years to come, that peculiar week when the dogs pawed at sections of the road and at the roots of a certain maple tree as if a friend of theirs had died there. How the mayor's beagle bayed and howled at nothing for hours and nopony could make him stop. How Sorbet's spoiled poodle kept trying to run into the woods when he normally never left the soft security of his wicker basket.

How Honey Glaze, the most sensible soul for miles, made grooves in the street from pacing back and forth through town at ghastly hours of the night, following invisible footprints. She claimed her hooves did not know the ground there anymore and when Lickety Split demanded to know what that meant Honey Glaze had no answer for her. Months later, she could still be found staring at an empty stable, feeling ill at ease for no apparent reason, as if a ghost lived there.

On Sundays over sundaes Conemarans would nod to each other and say, "Odd duck of a time that was" and "Aye, it's the fruit grown from stargazing unicorns what carry weird bags of tricks. Especially ones you let in your house." Mayor Lickety Splits' townhouse was the core and cause of the strangeness; everypony knew it, though only the Treacle Twins actually saw the caped unicorn stay there. The lad bewitched the place, of course (whether "the place" concerned the mayor's house, the Residential District, or Conemara as a whole was a matter of opinion) for being slighted. The Mayor and her aide claimed that the lad was pleasant enough, but unicorns almost always found ways feel slighted in earth towns, no matter how polite you were.

Sometimes during these talks a silly pony would theorize that perhaps it was not the bearded unicorn at all, but the bald ape that traveled with him. A few even wondered if it was an ape at all, if it was perhaps a mythological creature in disguise. These ponies received polite smiles, eye-rolls, and of-course-dears, and then ignored as the conversation became sensible again.


	8. A String of Harts

At home it was often said that conversations with Star Swirl were nigh impossible. Ponies in front of his face only had a small fraction of his attention while the rest of his head floated out and onwards. It had been that way for longer than he could remember. "The foal was born with blinders about his eyes," his kin often said.

As time passed over his unlit horn, those gentle chaffs congealed into biting criticism. So be it, then. If he appeared deaf, dithering, or discourteous in the eyes of the unenlightened, that was no business of his.

Star Swirl looked at the harts all about him and sighed. He did have to admit, though, that more attention to his surroundings might have prevented his current predicament.

In spite of his rough apprehension, the unicorn's swift ride through the green hills was fair and smooth, all things considered. Dogwood's tall leaps and hard landings jostled Star Swirl's stomach and banged him about the cage of antlers early on, but the weight of his passenger soon put him out of that habit. The stag was in no hurry for an ugly spill or a sprained ankle.

Star Swirl did not know where he was being taken or what plans waited for him there. The tines arched above his head in beautiful, sharp points and could run him through with little trouble. He did not know how far the human's tracking skill stretched and if the harts traveled on far enough, it could be difficult to reconvene.

These should have been Star Swirl's main concerns, but they only brushed the edges of his thoughts. He had greater things to wonder on than something as paltry as his own welfare. A kidnapping was inconvenient, but it was no reason to interrupt his studies.

The incident under the maple was intriguing and the most exciting part of his travels so far, aside from the initial discovery of a human. What made the hounds behave the way they did? Why did they not approach the human until the next day? When did they realize he was there? And how? And why? Why did they wait so patiently? Why did tame dogs have this reaction while ferals did not? Did the dogs of Conemara share bloodlines with the fabled wolf servants of the contradiction creatures? Would they have served the human if he asked? If so, to what limit? Was it limited to Conemaran dogs or would Prince Argent's favored hound bow before a human too? Or was it only a coincidence and the hounds were only curious about the absence of magic around the tree?

If only the human hadn't been frightened of the dogs—ridiculous, a creature that could fell dragons spooked by a little beagle—he might have made observations more astute.

"And then," Star Swirl mused to himself, "There is the matter of the honey colored mare. She knew more than she knew."

It was possible that her wizened earth pony instincts told her there was a dangerous creature about, the way a turtledove knew which way was south. That certainly would have been the conclusion his teachers would have come to.

Or... Or it meant that the void of magic draped about the human spread beyond the nullification of spells. It went deep into that mysterious land of magic at the core of all ponies; the thing that made the Nation's flowers grow and the Hegemony clouds take shape. Things nopony had ever truly studied before, not just functional spells for lifting heavenly bodies or uprooting diamonds. Something deeper, older, yet still brand new. Like Lady Galaxy or Mimic the Gold-Shod, he could walk paths lit by starlight.

All of this might have been more exciting had if not for the fact that he'd no way to prove any of it. Theory was useless without execution, as far as the schools of magic were concerned and until his notes could be read by light from his horn, none would read them or care. But for the first time in many years, his mood was too bright to be overcast by that troubling fact. In the cups of Dogwood's antlers, Star Swirl smiled.

The Hartfelt Company slowed their pace as the world changed from hills to woodland. They came to a place where Star Swirl could not see the tops of the trees. The sun was a stranger here. The harts weaved through a maze of branches and bark like a sewing needle. Dogwood went on carefully to keep his antlers from snagging.

They stopped at a tight little copse surrounded by brambles. If Star Swirl strained his ears, he could hear music from a lyre leaking out into the forest. From behind the trees came a voice, high pitched and gossamer thin. "Halt! By the heart of harts, the glory of the glen, the wild of the wood, who goes there?"

Larch shook her head with a sigh. "I do wish we didn't have to go through this every time we took three steps from the trees. It's getting a little tiresome."

Dogwood nodded. "It could rhyme at the very least."

Then Larch lifted her head and voice. "By the wild of the wood, by the glory of the glen, by the heart of harts, it is we who left the grace of the woods so wild and wandered. 'Tis we who left to allocate autonomy to the disenfranchised and despaired in Conemara yonder: the Knave's first doe, Larch, with fair Aspen and Dogwood. And young Douglas Fir, who misses rehearsals and ruins meters." She paused for dramatic effect. "And a unicorn."

There was a stir of soft, excited voices behind the brambles before the thin voice called out again. "Alright, then. What's the password?"

"Wha-? Since when do we have a password?!"

"Since three hours ago. It's a very good password, the Knave came up with it hisself. I helped!"

"You made up a password while we weren't even here?"

"Yes."

"But ye still expect us to know it."

"Uh-huh."

The hind laid her ears back and gave the brambles flattest look she could manage. The other harts exchanged a look.

"Oh, but it's alright, Larch, you still know it! Just call out once like a love-struck butterfly, then twice like a grumpy swordfish."

"Um. Neither of those animals makes a sound," Aspen said.

"Exactly!" the sentry giggled. "You'll never forget it!"

Dogwood tilted his head so far to the side Star Swirl yelped for fear of falling out. "Whose voice is that? Is...is that Poplar?"

"Can't be her," the yearling laughed. "Popple's still in her spots. Whoever heard of a fawn keeping sentry?"

The voice grew an octave. "Douglas Fir, you hush! I grew out of 'most all my spots a whole month ago and anyway you're hardly older than I am. If your fool self is old enough to leave the trees, then I'm old enough to keep watch from 'em." The bramble moved aside to reveal a fawn wrinkling her little nose at them. "An' you can quit calling me Popple, too."

Star Swirl found himself in a clearing striped with sunlight and the grass bitten low. The gentle lilt of strings hit a sour note and cut off. The other harts concealed themselves in the pockets of shadow, with only small hints to their identity. A hoof here, a red coat there, the shine from a nose, and off to the side, in a bed of oak leaves, a huge pair of amber eyes looking back at him.

_Odd eyes for a deer._ The figure they belonged to was smaller and stubbier than the other harts and as it turned to the side he saw the blunt stub of an antler. Likely another yearling, it was too big for a fawn. As the other harts—an older stag and a heavyset doe—stepped into the light to sniff and stare at the pony in Dogwood's antlers, the deer in the shadows only blinked at him and did not move.

The stag was a handsome creature, dark muzzled with a rich summer coat the color of fallen leaves, antlers branched out tall and wide in an impressive six and twenty tines. A circlet of plaited ivy curled behind his ears, sprigs climbed up to hug the lower crowns of his antlers. But there was white frost upon his face and he moved in the burdened, languid steps of a creature approaching the autumn of his life, graceful steps though they were.

"And so our intrepid pilgrims step into their woodlands wild, returned from quest won in wit and guile." He touched noses with Larch, then Aspen. Star Swirl felt the Dogwood's muscles tense like a bowstring.

The elder stag turned to them with a thoughtful little smile. The velvet of his antler prodded at Star Swirl's barrel. "I didn't know Conemara had a haberdasher. 'Tis a fine hat, Dogwood, but I'm afraid the color doesn't go with your eyes at all. Tell me, what manner is it? Prisoner purloined or a comrade caught?"

Dogwood took a step back and bowed his head, dumping out the unicorn in a jingling heap. Star Swirl peeked out from the cape draped over his head before tossing it back into place. A pink starburst of mane flared out behind his head, prompting snickers around the clearing.

"I can't tell what manner he is, Knave." The stag cricked his neck and smirked as the unicorn shrank under his gaze "But he seems partial to lyrical criticism."

"Hm?" Star Swirl widened his eyes and innocently looked around for this rude, nonexistent pony. He put a hoof to his chest. "I? I am only Star Swirl, a poorly scholar cataloging wild creatures of the Nation." He looked around at the deer with a tiny, foallike frown. "Although it appears I've discovered wilder creatures than intended."

Larch looked to the Knave. "All of a sudden he's all shyness and shivers. Didn't hear a lick of that in Conemara. I'd not listen to a word he says with without an versed opinion." She took a sniff of the unicorn's mane and shied away, flicking her wisp of a tail. "I don't like the smell of him, harts. Not at all."

The great stag took a whiff for himself. His hind legs fidgeted as a shiver ran through them. "Then a well versed opinion we will have. Heartstrings! What say you?"

The yearling with the odd eyes looked up. There was a light timbre in his voice, higher than a hart in his first pair ought to have. "I say he knows more than he tells us." He stood with a rustle of leaves and stepped forward. "Though I'm guessing you're wanting me to tell you a bit more than that."

The hooves weren't cloven. The coat was a light, minty green. A mane hung about the shoulders in stringy white tangles, though it might have been a different shade once. What he had presumed an antler nub was in fact a spiraled little horn. On both sides of her flank, the mark of a golden lyre.

Star Swirl quietly nickered in astonishment. It was a mare—and a unicorn mare at that! And judging by the crows feet, she was no yearling either.

Heartstrings circled him once, twice, poked at him at little, then sat. "He's telling the truth about the scholar bit, I can grant him that. But our lead hind's right to be suspicious. There's nothing simple about this colt at all, except maybe his luck."

She levitated a tuft of Star Swirl's mane and waved it in the Knave's face. "Take a gander at these brash colors, you'll find it in nobler blood. From the pink in his mane and the stars on his flank I'd say he's of House Galaxy. I thought it might have been House Fizzy at first, but the mark—and the name—comes from stars and that family's all about stars."

The mare glanced back at Star Swirl, who was still staring holes into her head. She flicked her tail and lifted a forehoof. "What?"

There were several answers to that question, mostly other questions. Things like _What are you doing the deer's wildwood?_ and _Were you also abducted?_ and _Are you aware your tail has seventeen burrs and a pinecone in it?_ and _Are these harts going to leave me for dead in a ditch somewhere?_

But he decided on, "Why are you naked?"

Heartstrings glanced down at herself. "Why not? Everyone else is."

She lifted his cape with a chipped forehoof and frowned at the light peeking through thinning silk. "Really, was this the best ye could do, Larch? Even with the blue of his blood, the wee lamb's a far cry from an arrogant lord or a fat tax collector."

"He doesn't even have a coin purse on him," observed the heavyset doe. "A disappointment, really."

Larch flicked an ear. "We left his possessions where they lay. Noble harts have no use for gold. And I don't see _you_ bringing back any aristocrats, Willow." She glanced back at the pair of unicorns, small under the arching trees. "What he lacks in wealth he makes up for in arrogance."

"He insulted us," Dogwood put in. "Or our poetry, at least. Same thing."

Star Swirl snatched his cape back, summoning all his will to bite back a retort. "I meant no insult, I was merely putting my learned skills in constructive criticism to use and that is all. Perhaps I was too brash in judgment. After all, had I known that in mere moments I'd be nose to nose with the legendary Knave of Harts and his Company—"

The old stag pricked his ears, leaning his neck down to pony level. He smelled of moss, musk and cedar. "You know of me?"

Reader, like all good little ponies Star Swirl knew lying was disgraceful. He also knew, however, that the truth could bend, twist, and curve into whatever shape suited him best. All ponies in polite society knew that.

"Oh, but of course I know of you! How could I not? The Unicorn Kingdom is all a fluster with talk of fearsome harts—not in public, of course, we still have our pride, you understand. But when last I saw him, the prince declared a handsome reward for the knave's capture, though none have gone to claim it."

"Has he?"

The blue unicorn nodded seriously. "I have it on good authority he guards the queen fiercely, in fear of her capture. In the evening the ladies in House Twinkle whisper rumors of rogues behind their fans. There is a curfew now."

Larch stood over him, squinting as if she could press the truth out of him with her eyelids. Star Swirl smiled politely at her, for he had said nothing that untrue. Foals had to be indoors by nine, the daughters in House Twinkle suspected one amongst them moonlighted in piracy, and in seventeen years Prince Argent never lost a chess match or a game of cards.

"'Tis rare we even leave the Kingdom at all, for fear of the wild of your woods." Star Swirl pointed in Conemara's direction. "I am the first unicorn you have seen in some time, yes?"

"Aye," Larch admitted. "The company's not seen a horned pony in ages."

"Well, there you are then!"

The harts all looked to each other with growing smiles. "That does make a great deal of sense," Willow said. "We used to see them south of the wildwood all the time before we began protecting Conemara."

Aspen nodded. "It matches Mayor Lickety Split's report of the unicorns run off by our reputation, the weak livered milksops."

"'Tis no wonder they rarely leave their gilded towers," the Knave of Harts sneered. "I expect going without a spine makes travel difficult even with the aid of profane magics."

The mare gave both of them a stony look. "A fortnight ago you didn't think unicorn magic profane when it patched up your attercop bites."

Larch nudged her with an ankle. "Aw, don't get your tail in a twist, now. You know that we didn't mean you."

"Yes," said Douglas Fir. "You're a unicorn but you're not a… you know, a _unicorny_ unicorn."

"Feh." Heartstrings stomped back into her corner and flopped down in a crunch of leaves, her back to all of them. Soft yellow lit the shade as the first chords of _The Gloaming Glen of Yarrow _began.

"I still don't like it." Dogwood peered down at Star Swirl, expressionless and still. "If we are so a-feared in the Kingdom then why does this one leave the safety of it?"

The stargazer took a cautious step away from Dogwood and his antlers. "I _told_ you, I wanted to expand the bestiaries and the growth of my knowledge is dear to me. Still, I cannot deny that the Kingdom's borders drew in tighter than I liked and polite unicorn society bores me to tears. I've always had an itch for adventures." Star Swirl ran his tongue over the scars stitched across his lips and flinched. The bleeding stopped days ago, but his muzzle was still tender. "Adventures or trouble. Either way, I seem more at home with wild brambles than rose gardens."

The Knave of Harts grinned. "Say no more, I understand perfectly. Tis not the first time the Company was among well-bred unicorns with a bit of wildwood in them. Isn't that right, Heartstrings?"

The strumming paused as the mare looked up from her lyre and sighed. "Look, we've been over this before. Not all unicorns are aristocrats. My kin are common as a cold and I've never had silk sheets or a diamond sewn in my saddle." Heartstrings frowned at Star Swirl and his rich colors, the pink of his beard bright even under the wildwood trees where afternoon wore a gloaming mask.

She picked up the song where she left off, a simple melody that didn't call much attention to itself. "Besides, I came to you as a minstrel and travel is my trade. I'm the exception, not the rule. Most ponies are tied to their hometowns by blood or tradition and they don't leave unless they're forced to."

"So not even the high-bred are free of tyranny, then?" The Knave blinked at Star Swirl with new eyes.

Heartstrings glared at him but as usual, this went unnoticed. The mare had done her part and as far as the harts were concerned she'd faded into the background with her music. Under the notes she groused to herself, "That isn't what I said at all.."

"What was it, little fellow?" Larch tittered like a fawn, absolutely delighted with the idea of a rebellious unicorn. "Did you hear something you were not supposed to? Over hear a murderer's plan or attempt a coup against Mohs? Did you attempt to revolutionize the system? Is that how you were banished?"

"Banished?" Young Douglas Fir looked up, cheeks swollen with feathergrass. "I didn't know he was banished. What did he do?"

The harts were all staring at him now. The clearing buzzed with the question overlapping itself many times over. What has he done? What made him leave? What will he do now?

Star Swirl cringed under their eyes. He had prepared to speak of wonderful beasts and epic poetry, not his home. There was no time to craft an embellishment and he could see they wouldn't be pacified without an answer. "Nothing that exciting, I'm afraid. I was supposed to be married and I did not wish to be, so I left. And that is all."

The stags and the yearling looked at each other disappointedly but did not press him further, but the hinds all drew in closer, ears tilted high. There was nothing more romantic nor more rebellious than a discarded betrothal.

"It was done in the name of true love, of course," Aspen said. Her fellow hinds all nodded in agreement.

"There was obviously a sweet, humble mare that won his heart, perhaps a seamstress or a schoolmarm," said Larch. "Would that not be adorable? A scholar and a schoolmarm separated by status but drawn together by devotion?"

Willow shook her head. "Nay, that can't be it at all. Why would the little fellow have to leave his land if his sweetheart was unicorn? Even poor ones live in the kingdom."

"Mayhap _she _was the one who was banished?"

Aspen ran a tight little circle in her excitement. "Yes! For teaching revolutionary ideas to young, open minds!"

"And the little bearded unicorn went out to wander the world in search of her!" Willow fluttered her eyes and sighed, "Oh, the poor thing. He's so brave."

Poplar balanced on her hind legs and stretched her neck as far as it could so her little voice could carry. "D'you know what I think? I think his true love was an earth pony and that's how come he's come to the Nation to look for her."

"And that must be why he has the mark he does! Look, a pair of stars shooting in opposite directions." Aspen looked back to Heartstrings. "That is what you said, right? The mark on a pony's flank reveals their destiny."

Heartstrings hunched her shoulders and pulled in her tail.. "Yes," she said, "but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's—"

"Star-crossed!" cried the hinds. "He's a star-crossed lover." They all shared a lovelorn sigh as the Knave and Dogwood exchanged an irritated look.

Star Swirl himself was forgotten even as the hinds speculated the intricate romantic mysteries of his past. It was no use to correct them, they had already decided what he was. That suited him fine. Whatever wild backstory they created saved him from admitting he was the tangled knot in House Galaxy's bloodline. The hinds' version, filled up with renegade romance was much better than skulking away in the dead of night, the disgrace of his House trailing behind him.

"Speaking of romance, our own little Douglas is about that age," Willow chuckled. "Maybe the two of them could pair together in the meantime."

"I'll go off to find a herd of my own before that." Douglas Fir wrinkled his muzzle at the thought of such a terrible engagement. "Besides, I can't stand to be within a foot of him. There's a strange scent upon his cape that chills the blood and pricks the nape."

"Complain when you've had him in your antlers for two miles," Dogwood huffed. "Certainly never smelled anything of the like before, 'twas stronger in town and I'm glad to be away from it."

The stargazer's ears perked. _That's interesting._

Like the Conemaran vet, the harts sensed him too, even while they were preoccupied speaking with the mayor and defending their couplets. Star Swirl wondered what they would have seen, had they bothered to look into the maple branches. _With no expectations of bald apes and more reason to fear him than a pony, perhaps they would have known him._ _The human would have been difficult to make out in the leaves, for deerfolk were never famed for eyesight, but one doesn't have to see to know. _

But look they never did, and so Star Swirl was alone with his insight. He drew it in and around him like a blanket; the privileged secret kept him warm and the intrigue of harts cooled his composure.

The unicorn shifted into his fortune teller voice, a quieter tone that sounded older than it was and trailed along the air like smoke. It was not as fascinating as Cozen's eerie crackle, and it lacked the quiet, mournful power of the human's tongue, but it did the trick well enough. "I could not say for certain what it is that you sense, for your nose is keener than mine. My hooves have crossed many lands, dear harts."

Aspen, Willow, and Douglas Fir settled on their knees so they could hear better. Larch and Poplar peeked over his shoulder; the fawn's breath tickled his neck.

"It could be any manner of creature smell caught in the silk of my travels. It comes with the profession of cataloging of all creatures fearsome and frail. I might leave foreign lands, but they never leave me. I have come far and learned many things, but I couldn't say what it is that sets a chills even in harts brave as Dogwood. Why don't we discover it together?"

Dogwood said nothing, but took an aloof step towards Larch, as if he'd only strolled in by coincidence. The Knave had kneeled next to the unicorn and offered a bit of his feathergrass.

Star Swirl was all too eager to accept it. "Now, perhaps you smell the scales of a quarray eel. It could be fur from the deadly manticore or an ursa major or even the carnage from a barghest's kill. I admit, I did not see the barghest, for after seeing what it did to the minotaur I ran fast as I could." He paused to savor the fresh grass's sweet flavor. "Or it might not be anything so fancy and you just smell the rotting stink of timberwolf breath."

"Ooh!" Poplar broke into a wide grin. "I know about timberwolves!"

Star Swirl ducked from the loud volume in his ears. "Oh, do you?"

"Yes, they're made of enchanted wood and can put themselves back together again when ye smash them apart. Our wonderful Knave keeps them away, just like he does with tyrants."

"Like he'd ever know a tyrant from a tambourine." Dogwood mumbled bitterly. "He's not left the wood in twelve seasons."

Larch hummed in agreement.

"You really think 'twas the barghest that killed the minotaur?" asked Willow. "Couldn't it have been a dragon or something?"

"Well, it's an interesting story, that. This happened while I was still in the kingdom and still a colt without a mark..."

The tale of the barghest was his personal favorite, for it was one of the few monster stories backed by a personal encounter and not just lectures from his teachers, and gave the story the delicious flavor of truth.

Star Swirl followed that with the epic poem of the Ursas' war upon the Canis, and then sent peels of laughter about the clearing with a limerick about the ouroboros. When he went into the epic of Sonambula, even Heartstrings edged closer.

It was early twilight when young Douglas Fir asked, "Did you ever see a woodwraith?"

His voice echoed in the clearing, quiet and alone, as if it had lost its mother. Some old instinct told the harts to pull in their herd and soon they were all in a tight circle, little Poplar blinking up from the center. The yearling flinched at his own question but there was no taking it back now. Their sacred, beautiful wildwood had changed. Suddenly it didn't shelter them from danger, but left them blind to the horrors lurking behind the elms and oaks. They dared not move and betray their position. They dared not speak and miss hearing a vital snap of branches.

Star Swirl glanced at Heartstrings, standing just outside the circle, tensed more from interest than fear.

"Well?" It was Larch who finally broke the silence. "Have you?"

"Well, I—"

"Of course he hasn't." The Knave was louder than he'd been all that day. "He couldn't have seen a woodwraith because wraiths don't exist."

Dogwood rounded on him. "Let the lad answer the question, he's got his own tongue." The Knave pinned the stag with a warning glance. Dogwood met it with a stare of his own. "The pony's ventured far from his doorstep. He's seen wonders and he's widened his ken. More than could be said for certain cervine in this glen."

"Have you heard what's happened to the whitetails in the south?" Larch's voice dipped low. "Their lead doe went missing this past spring. She went to the riverbank to sample pear blossoms and never came back. Her sons found what was left of her dangling from a tree. Her skin was gone." Larch glanced down at Poplar, pressed close against Willow's leg. "An elk coming from the mountains told me."

The Knave stomped, more from frustration than at Larch. "Don't be a fool. Anything dead for a week will lose its skin after the blowflies and ravens get at it. Even fawns know that." He ran his eyes over his frightened herd and frowned. "Honestly, some empty headed whitetail down south stumbles in attercop web and you lot make a production out of it. That elk either colored the truth or lied entirely."

"I don't think the attercop like to live near the water," Aspen said quietly. "Water makes their webbings sag."

"They don't just leave their prey hanging about like that either. If the attercop got the whitetail there'd be naught left. And the elk described nothing like a web, 'twas but one string, practically invisible." Larch shuddered, then looked to her leader. "I suppose next you'll tell us spiders know invisibility spells."

"Can wraiths really do that?" Willow stared with wide, wide eyes. "Just spin an invisible string like that?"

"First I heard of it, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit."

"There is no such thing as a woodwraith!" the Knave called, but no hart took him to heart.

"The elk said the smell of smoke and ash was all about the place she died, though lightning never struck and it rained all that spring. The grass and trees were unburnt." Larch nodded to herself. "A fire there and gone by unnatural means. If that's not sign of a wraith I don't know what is."

"They call up bright lights to blind you stupid," Dogwood added.

"Crying out in voices that aren't theirs, they call and then you answer. They appropriate the cervine tongue to harvest hide and antler." It was Poplar's first successful couplet and should have been cause for celebration but the harts were too shaken to notice, Poplar included.

Hidden somewhere in the circle, Douglas Fir said, "Their skin's bright orange, you know, excepting the head. And their eyes are big and black and shiny, like a dragonfly's."

"That's if ye even see the woodwraith at all," said Aspen. "They're wraiths for a reason; ye'll not know they're there till the air cracks and they've hit you. Quick and from far away, all without touching you themselves."

"No, they don't use teeth. They don't fight fair." Larch looked at the Knave of Harts. "But we've no need to worry, for there is no such thing." She began to laugh, a crestfallen sound that scratched her throat.

Dogwood's eyes softened. He made a step towards her, but the Knave blocked him at the last moment. The great, old stag rested his nose against her cheek. She smiled at him, though it didn't reach her eyes, still watching the dark beyond the trees.

Star Swirl's cape jingled as he squirmed at the thought of the cloak he'd stepped around last night. The greyish brown one that covered the sleeping contradiction creature. The woodwraith.

But then he thought of the terror in Larch's eyes and decided, _No. No, they're not scared of humans at all. _

Even the human in all his quiet and terrible power could never compare against what frightened the harts. He could step from the thicket at that very moment and they could know him for what he was and go on eating their flowers and feathergrass. But the human's shadow... his shadow would send them screaming into the hills. The shadow was bigger than he.

"There, don't worry, love. I'm here," the Knave said. "I'm here and realer than any wraith." He gestured towards Heartstrings, who plucked at her aimless lyre as she watched the wood. "Let us turn the mood with a song."

The mare blew a puff of white mane out of her eyes and smiled. "Gladly! I came up with this lovely song the other day, about three jackdaws and a kni—"

"Maybe next time. Why don't you play one of the Company ballads? Maybe _The Cruel Taxmare_ or, if you really must play something new, _The Knave of Harts and the Queen of Diamonds_?"

"But _Harts and Diamonds _isn't finished. The last verse still needs work and I don't have the right cadence yet. Are you really sure you don't want to hear the one about the jackdaws?"

"Alright, we will go with the classic. _Taxmare_ it is."

The clearing erupted in a series of groans, sighs, shouts, and jeers.

"We heard that old thing fifty times this month!" Poplar wailed.

"Wake me when the song's over."

"You'll have yourself a long nap, Willow. That ballad goes on for nineteen verses," laughed Douglas Fir.

Dogwood waited for the herd to finish their complaints before speaking up. "Nay, Heartstrings. I think we're in the mind to hear something older. Sing _Hark the Horned Hind_, sing us a ballad of perytons!" He cooly stared into the eye of the Knave of Harts. "Sing us a _true _song."

The Knave lifted himself taller. He was eerily quiet as he looked Dogwood over. "Small bairn of Willow and the late Black Pine. Dost thou have words for ears or tines?"

The younger stag smiled evenly. His stare kept steady. "Nay. The summer still runs sweet and bright. The wind calls peace and want of olden ballads sung. T'was a young buck's want for hinds' hearts set light..." Dogwood ran his eyes along the ivy hugging the Knave's antlers, down to the grey peppered on his muzzle. "But autumn's leaf may loosen tongues. Winter comes, my Knave of Harts." The smile faded away. "Winter comes, and all its parts."

The stags circled each other. The Knave opened his mouth to respond when a lyre suddenly hovered in front of his face.

Heartstrings had to stand on her hind legs to be seen, it looked as if she'd practiced at it. "So! Since the herd is at odds for ballads, why don't I just play them both? I can start with _Hark the Horned Hind _and end with _Time and Tine_." She looked from one hart to the other, grinning stiffly. "How's that suit?"

The Knave of Harts kneeled down, watching Dogwood elegantly trot away. "That's suitable. If it is to be a night for myths, I won't stop you." Larch, Aspen, and Willow gave him a hard eye as Heartstrings began the ballad.

The old stag flicked his ears. "Don't you give me that look. The Horned Hind is a myth and you know it. A construct of folklore and the mind to settle nervous deerfolk and give them a bit of confidence. Nothing wrong with a myth, mind, but tis a myth, still. Hinds do not have horns and there is no such thing as an unkillable deer. Nothing is unkillable. Even dragons can be slain under the right circumstance."

The song went on without interruption. Towards the end of the climax, when a fleet of arrows bounced harmlessly off the Horned Hind's chest, Larch brought up her head. She looked at her herd with bright eyes, then looked at her own hooves. "The Hind's no creature, Knave." She was whispering, partly out of respect for the song and partly from the sureness of her words. "Nor is the white stag, the perytons, or the bleeding hart. All of them, they... they're more. More than us."

Star Swirl looked up. He'd felt something.

The Knave shrugged with a yawn. "If you say so, dear. But you'd do better to trust in the test—"

Something sparked in the unicorn's chest. He felt it pierce his left ventricle, sharply cold, then warm. Warm and getting warmer. Was it getting warmer outside of him or inside of him? He couldn't tell.

Star Swirl's head swam; suddenly he had to sit down. No, he had to stand back up. He wasn't really sure what he ought to do, but when did he ever? He felt himself trembling, though he was perfectly still. The warmth within him burbled and cracked in the hearth in his chest.

_This has happened before. _It had been so long. _I've forgotten what magic felt like. Not felt it since I got my mark._

He'd called it back to him without even meaning to. Star Swirl pulled it not from intense study or meditation or scrolls but from the sighing of hinds. From the space between the cords of a ballad and from the shadow of a wraith. From the echoes of Rainbow light. He pulled it from the things that were real because they were not.

Star Swirl knelt on the grass, crippled by his own strength and laughing at the irony of it all. _You waited this long. Do what you will. _He closed his eyes; it was too much work keeping them open. Star Swirl felt himself grow steadily colder as the magic lifted itself up and out of him like sweat evaporating from his coat.

"—stimony of your own senses," the Knave of Harts finished.

"What was that light?" Young Douglas Fir lifted his head and looked around. "Do we have will-o-the-wisps in these woods?"

Poplar yawned, "See what? I didn't see anything."

"It was like a… oh, never mind. Probably just a firefly."

Star Swirl looked upwards. The leaves above him glowed if they'd been drawn on the trees with a quill made of light. His horn had the same light around it not long ago; he couldn't see it but he was sure it happened.

"I've done something," he whispered to the tree. "I wonder what."

Heartstrings finished _Hark the Horned Hind _to a round of feather-soft hoof taps on the dirt, the cervine version of raucous applause. She opened her eyes as she started to thank her audience, but the words caught and died in her throat.

A shadow dripped into the clearing. A tall, black, tapered thing that twisted in all the wrong directions, balanced preposterously on two stilted legs as it reached out to the harts with the spidery claws. Another one joined it, its inky head peeking out from behind a juniper.

The scentless, senseless things stretched closer. The harts drew together, with the name of the shadows written on their eyes: hart-breaker. Skin-stealer. Wraith. The herd took a collective step back. The shadows slid further in, swaying on the forest floor as if underwater.

Dogwood's eyes became very wide and he took a careful step forward. "That," he whispered, "Is not a wraith. Not at all."

The two legged shadow ended at the four hooves of a stag. He was a pale grey, eyes and antlers bone white. He snarled with a mouth full of sharp red-tinged fangs. Wings splayed out upon his shoulders, feathered in silver and white. A second stag with a dark grey coat came to join him, black winged with dark eyes and antlers.

"Perytons," Dogwood whispered to himself. "I thought they'd all died."

The Knave pinned back his ears with a snort. "The peryton is a storybook creature, thought up to embolden fawns and fools."

The first peryton blinked once, then barreled into the clearing, scattering the herd to the corners. He reared upon his hind legs, flailing hooves flashing like the edge of a blade. His every move had lightning's bright swiftness.

His brother came close behind, lifting himself into the air in a thunderclap of wings. The peryton passed through the branches unhindered, circling the harts a few times before settling in a branch above Star Swirl's head. The edge of his feathers burned faint blue.

The unicorn stared up with a foolish grin. "I think I will have to add another bell." The peryton blinked down at him, humming a roll of thunder and licking wolf blood from his lips.

"Look!" Aspen gave a little squeal of delight. "Look, they're not alone!"

True to her word, another deer was coming from the thicket. A younger stag, comet white save for the endless green of his eyes. He came in dignified little steps as the boughs bowed to let him in.

From the other side of the clearing came a doe the color of fresh blood. A feathered arrow jutted from the white heart-shaped mark upon her chest, though the doe didn't seem to notice it. She looked around the copse and smiled. The white stag and the bleeding hart touched noses and walked on. Aspen and Willow watched them with little sighs of wonder.

Three more deer came from the wildwood, though Star Swirl did not know their names. A thin hind that dashed even faster than the perytons. A prancing fawn that couldn't stop laughing at the whole affair, the laugh itself a rustle of jingle-bells. Poplar skipped behind them, giggling along at the secret joke.

Douglas Fir's mouth went dry as the most beautiful hind he'd ever seen stepped quietly in. She glanced about, unimpressed. A sleeping fox draped itself around her shoulders as a living shawl. It yawned dramatically as Douglas Fir offered the lovely hind a dandelion.

Larch stood to the side all by herself. She watched the wonder go quietly by and smiled as her herd of flesh met with the herd of legend.

Heartstrings stood beside her, holding her lyre and frowning at the perytons' bipedal shadows. The mare caught Star Swirl's eye; her disappointment bit at him like a botfly.

There came another thunderclap of peryton wings and the legends looked up as one. One by one they stepped away from the Company to come together at the edge of the copse where they stood tall and silent.

The Knave cocked an eyebrow. "Hmph. I suppose that—"

"Hush." Larch's soft voice drowned him out. "For once, hush like a deer's supposed to. Be quiet and wait."

And there was the Horned Hind. She had not stepped from the trees like the others did; she was simply there after not being there. The grass did not bend beneath her hooves but held her weight as if she weighed no more than a damselfly. She left a trail of morning dew instead of footprints. Little acorns grew from the tips of her tines. The only cervine that never knew fear, would never die, and could only be caught behind the bars of a song.

Larch began to cry. The Hartfelt Company formed itself behind her, stealing shy glances at the Hind. Only the Knave and the unicorns looked directly at her. The Horned Hind paid none of them any mind as she went on her way, golden and dancing and older than any of them, despite being born a moment ago.

Star Swirl felt something in the air drop as something in the universe tore itself open. A faraway twig snapped. The light from the Hind stuttered like a candle in the wind. The perytons and the white stag rippled and broke like water before righting themselves again, paler than they were before. The human was in the forest.

Star Swirl couldn't say where he was, but likely too far to do the magic any more harm. That or the spell was too strong to break under his presence, but the unicorn didn't dare put such high hope in his own skill.

The Knave of Harts marched forth with his voice high. "There! There, you see that? Stuff and nonsense!" He turned a wrathful eye at Star Swirl, still curled in a corner unable to move as the tip of his horn shone. "Harts, harts, can you not see through their pelts? Now do you see the glow of lies about their hooves and antlers?"

Larch was the only one who seemed to notice his cries. She passed an eye over him once, then at the streams of sunlight trailing from the Hind's antlers as they scraped the sky. "No. I don't."

The Knave bucked his head and pawed the dirt. The golden hind blinked her large eyes at him curiously and danced towards him. With a great bellow the stag charged. He hammered down upon her with his will and solid hooves and four and twenty tines that led his herd for forty seasons.

The Horned Hind waltzed through him as if he were a bit of sunlight. She paused a moment, as if confused, then went on her way across the clearing and back into the woods. The perytons, the bleeding hart, the prancing fawn and the dashing doe and the white stag and the pretty doe with the fox followed close behind. One by one they faded into the forest, real as a rainbow.

"Wait!" Larch screamed herself raw as the rest of the Company joined her cries. "Please wait! We're coming with you!"

Star Swirl barely managed to roll out of the way as the deer barreled into the thicket, ignoring the thorns and branches scratching at their coats. Heartstrings wavered at the great hole the herd left behind. She watched the perytons' two legged shadow slide away until she could stand it no longer and ran after it with a strangled cry.

"Shadows!" The Knave called after them. "They're naught but smoke and shadows and tricks, nothing real!" His voice echoed in the empty glen. His chest heaved with age and effort and sorrow. "Nothing real at all."

Star Swirl creaked, "Even shadows need something real to cast from." The glow of his horn had faded, but the light stayed in him. The simple delight of knowing he made magic made the unicorn laugh again. He was so giddy he didn't notice when the Knave kicked him or feel the tines dig into his skin as he was lifted up. The laughter only faltered when he landed hard in the tree branch.

"I knew your sort was tricky, but to turn my own against me, oh, that's a trick too far."

The tree he'd been stranded in was just high enough for a tall stag's reach but still too high to safely jump down from. The leaves around the unicorn still twinkled in their blue-white glow, as if the tree had frozen over. "I think you're confused," Star Swirl chuckled. "Its pegasi that sleep in trees, not unicorns."

The Knave of Harts stood alone in a forest where winter had come early. "I am going to gather up my deer and send word to House Galaxy." His voice was too low to have been speaking to anyone but himself. His dark nose twitched upon his snowy muzzle. "I'm sure we can fetch a decent ransom from your father at least." The great old stag sighed and followed his herd, knowing that even if he found them he would not have them.

Star Swirl watched him go, quiet as he pondered his words. "My... MY father? My Da's going to pay you? For _me_?"

The thought was so absurd and made him so sad that Star Swirl laughed until he ran out of breath and everything ached.


	9. The Tatting & The Tangles

"When does it become necessary to risk breaking all of one's legs?" Star Swirl wondered.

Above, the half-moon lit the tree tops. Soft bluish light from his residual magic clung to the oak leaves all around him. But below him, there were only vague shapes and figures in the dark. Down there might be a soft bed of leaves to break his fall or packed soil to break his back, presuming he didn't bounce off all the other branches on the way down.

Star Swirl strained his ears for a rustling bushes or a twig snapping under an artificial hoof. It was clear from the gaping wound in the magical atmosphere the human was still in the wildwood, but it was impossible to say where. He wouldn't be hard to miss; one rarely heard the man coming, he often moved so quietly.

The human might have been just outside the thicket or hugging the border or gone through the wood in the wrong direction, bypassing Star Swirl entirely. All the tracking skill in the world couldn't change the fact humans couldn't see in the dark and he wouldn't look for a pony in the trees.

It was quite possible he couldn't see the glow of the tree either.

_With the harts gone, none but I could claim I'd cast anything at all. _Star Swirl nosed a glimmering leaf. Proof was in the trampled forest and the glowing oak, but that only proved magic had been here, not that it had been his. He hadn't cast a spell, for spells were under one's control and done for a purpose. His magic never behaved, the rare times it appeared at all. He couldn't tell it where to go, what to do, or what to be like a decent unicorn ought. The raw want from Larch and Dogwood called the Horned Hind to the same degree Star Swirl's power did, if not more.

But, regardless of how it behaved or who it belonged to, magic had been with him for a time. Nothing else could have made him so happy or left him so terribly empty. He still felt where it used to be, echoing in the hollow of his horn. "Typical."

The unicorn pricked his ears and lifted his head. There was a low sound coming from someplace he couldn't see.

"Hello?" he asked the dark. "Is anypony out there?"

Someone gasped softly in the quiet commotion of rustling leaves and cricket chirps. A murmur on the air, delicate and wavering, as if the voice did not know it was a voice yet. It sounded as if it were above him.

Star Swirl looked up, wondering if there were pegasi about. Something shone colorlessly in the moonlight. He stretched his neck to squint. It was just barely visible: a web spreading between the upper branches in a complex arch of contours and great swooping radials too large to have been made by a simple orb spider. His eye traced it back to the glowing oak to see a white cocoon barely hidden by the tree trunk. A mangled owl foot jutted from the top, talons clenched in a tight fisted rigor mortis.

Something sharp stabbed the unicorn's flank. Instinctively he jumped away, forgetting that there was nowhere to jump to.

The branch slipped out from under him. His hooves flailed in the empty rush of air. He fell several inches before he stopped with a jolt. The black expanse of ground swung and spun below him as he swayed in midair.

Something had his back legs. He wriggled and twisted about to find his hooves tied fast in a white bundle.

The murmurs came again, high with fright as it built into a solid whisper. "I'm sorry! Are you quite alright?"

A cast of spider silk spread over Star Swirl's injured flank until the pain faded away, along with all other feeling in his legs. The webbing rolled over the lower half of his body until he was surely fastened to the tree.

"Hello." A grey spider the size of a ripe watermelon hovered on a silver thread a few inches from the unicorn's nose. Small for an attercop. "I _am_ so sorry to frighten you but I thought you were going to fall and break apart on the rocks. You were just so beautiful, I couldn't stand it if you broke." The voice didn't come from her mandibles, but the air surrounding her, the light behind her red eyes.

Star Swirl gawked at her in stunned silence. The attercop began to swing idly from her thread, the way a shy filly might kick her hoof in the dirt. Her legs twiddled in the air, unsure what to do with themselves. "I…I have never seen anything like you before. What are you, please?"

"I'm, um. I'm a pony," Star Swirl said, unsure if he ought to be more frightened or confused. "A unicorn pony, to be exact."

"You are a beautiful one, then. Has anyone told you that? Because you are."

"Thank…you?" What else was he supposed to say to a spider? Star Swirl looked out into the dark wildwood and raised his voice to carry through the trees, just short of a yell. "I did not know the attercop knew how to talk."

The thread gleamed brightly for a moment. She had no lips, but the attercop still managed to smile at him. "We cannot. We do speak to each other, but never in this way. Not with... words? I have never known a word before, but I am sure that is what they are called. I have words in my head, too. But I do not think you can hear them."

The numbness in Star Swirl's flank spread into his hip as the spider skittered along his sides. The silk cinched tight under his ribs like a corset. His front legs were still free, but he couldn't move them.

Star Swirl's mouth went dry. The bite from the attercop wasn't dangerous in itself, it only paralyzed to give the colony time to swarm and drag prey into the treetops. He looked again at the web stretched across the branches. It didn't look big enough to support an entire colony, but for every attercop you saw there were eight others you didn't.

He leaned away from the spindly leg reaching for his face. "Are there more of you?"

The spider thought for a moment. When she spoke again her voice shook, far softer than before.

"I saw the sacs of my sisters crushed underhoof before the atterlings had a chance to see the stars. There was a tapestry here. It unfurled across many trees in sheets of spiraled silk, crafted by generations of mothers and daughters. Our art was unmatched. I am sorry you did not get to see it before the antlers ripped it apart. I do not sure why they did that. Perhaps they did not like it? We could have made it better if they did not like it. There was no need to destroy it. I do not understand… I do not know where the rest of my colony is, either. I have not seen them since they tapestry broke. I cannot find my sisters or my mother or my nieces. I think…"

The attercop curled her legs close to her body, unsure and confused. "I think I am the only one left. Sometimes I can feel something strange inside me but I do not know what it is called. It feels very heavy and it makes me hurt - not on the outside, but inside. I do not like it. I do not like it at all."

She skittered down to perch on Star Swirl's nose. "Their names were Aranea. That is my name as well." The attercop brightened when he looked at her. "Do you like it?"

It was becoming difficult to breathe. "The word you...are looking for...is sad." Star Swirl tried to raise his voice, but it wouldn't go any higher.

Aranea tapped Star Swirl's limp hoof with a curious leg. She moved it up and down, trying to work out the logistics of how to bundle it properly. "I do not enjoy this...sad feeling, then. I have never been anything besides an egg and an atterling—only recently I am an attercop, please forgive me if my spinning is not yet perfect—and until recently I have never felt anything but hungry, cold, tired, or wet."

The attercop shook herself with a little squeak. "I do _not _like being wet. Ruins the art. Oh! Oh, I see. The leg bends _this _way. It is much easier when it curls against you and does not swing like a stray thread. There, it is snug in your cocoon now and is that not so much better? No chance of falls now, is there? No, there is not!"

Star Swirl paled at the sight of himself trussed in spider silk. A scream welled in his chest but couldn't find its way out. It trailed out of him in a frail whimper.

"Oh, dear, I'm sorry. I told you I was new at this." The silk pulled in tighter until Star Swirl's breath came short and Aranea heard no more unhappy sounds from the pretty pony. She wriggled all her legs and clacked her mandibles, delighted to make him comfortable. "I am less sad lately," she told him. "I am less heavy and there is light inside—the pretty kind, not the bad kind that comes when the moon goes away. I felt it when you made all the deer run away from here. I think…that is called love."

Star Swirl raised his eyebrows.

"Look at my tapestry. That is the work of three and I have done it alone and in only an hour. I wanted to make it nice for you. I am very glad you came up to see it. I am nothing like other attercop because of you. I can sorrow and make words in my head. You made me do that, I think."

Star Swirl blinked at Aranea's thread. It hummed with light as she spoke; bright bluish white, the color of his magic.

"By the look in your eyes I can see I am right. That was so kind of you. You did not have to do that." The attercop had finished her weaving and was now content to simply hover next to her unicorn. Her front legs stroked the underside of his jaw. "I know now why the harts spoke of unicorns so often. If all unicorns have half your beauty it must make the harts very jealous."

She bundled the last of him in her silk and held him close. Only Star Swirl's head was left uncovered so the attercop could admire the starlight gleaming upon his horn. "Oh, my handsome little wizard. I do love you so."

Star Swirl could not remember the last time someone told him they loved him. He might have appreciated it more if not for his chest burning with every breath he took. His gasps came out in ragged little croaks.

Aranea sighed, though she had no breath. Her legs wound and teased his beard as if crocheting a little pink scarf. "Hmm, my love. My one and only love." Eight eyes blinked one at a time, each of them besotted. "I'm going to eat you," she cooed.

Star Swirl's eyes became dinner plate wide.

"Oh, no, no. Shh, don't fret. Marriage is a big step, I know, but it will be standard wedding. It will just a simple liquefying of innards, nothing fancy. There's no family to invite, after all."

The attercop caressed the dark colors spreading in the unicorn's face. Even with wedding jitters, he still made himself lovely for her. There was not a better husband in any wood in all the world. She was so lucky. "I shall still lay my eggs in your skull, if that's what you're worried about. Never will you be forgotten. The daughters of our granddaughters shall know and love the arcs of your ears and the tip of your tail."

Star Swirl blinked slowly. He couldn't hold his head up anymore and let it loll uselessly in the air. From this angle he had a clear view of Aranea's tapestry stretched along the branches. The moon was caught in the tatting with stars twinkling along the filigree. _'It was kind of her to give me that view. It's some of Galaxy's better work._'

"I am sorry if you feel a little uncomfortable. I promise you won't hurt much longer, my love." The silk about him wavered as Aranea sighed. "You have beautiful eyes. It will be a shame when the light goes out of them. Those are the sacrifices one makes for marriage, I suppose."

_Most spiders eat their husbands, _Star Swirl thought_. I suppose she can't help the way she is._

The attercop was still talking, but her words sloshed in his ears in a jumble of syllables that made no sense. A dark shape moved in front of his eyes, too big to be the attercop. The unicorn's ear weakly twitched at a faraway voice. One by one the oak leaves lost their glow.

Aranea's gentle voice suddenly wrenched into a shriek that flattened Star Swirl's ears against his head, the pitch climbed so high he couldn't hear it anymore. The spider legs released his head and skittered away. The attercop cried out again under a thick crack that made the whole tree tremble and Star Swirl swing violently in the air for a moment.

The great pressure on Star Swirl's chest went away and grateful lungs sucked in air as his vision began to clear. The first thing he saw was the attercop cradling a broken leg against her body, the rows of sharp little teeth behind her mandibles gleaming nastily.

The human crouched on a nearby branch, gripping the tree with one hand while brandishing his long staff in the other. His face was taut, contorted with a snarl of yellowing teeth and eyes smoldering under the shadow of his brow. A knife and a smaller iron dagger shone dully near his foot. The man growled low in his throat. Star Swirl shuddered.

Aranea made a sound like blades over a whetstone as she braced her seven good legs to jump. The staff cracked against her thorax, then again at her head until she cringed back, staggering higher into the oak. The human made another move toward the attercop before she skittered away, making the whetstone sound again; the attercop's distress signal for the cavalry to swarm. She paused a moment, perhaps remembering her colony was gone and no cavalry was coming to save her wedding, before she retreated higher in the tree. The attercop darted into a knothole, eight red eyes glaring down at the hideous hairless wedding crasher.

"Are you alright?" In the time it took the man's eye to look from attercop to unicorn, the snarling paragon of predators vanished and Star Swirl's companion had returned. It was hard to believe both creatures lived in the same body.

"I believe so."

The human sighed. "Good. Hold still." The iron dagger slashed easily through cocoon, now dull and colorless as any ordinary bit of string, sticking to the blade until it was coated in sticky attercop silk. Star Swirl just barely felt himself being slowly carried down to the little campfire waiting for him, his muscles still numb from the attercop bite.

Aranea peeked out of the knothole and watched him go, chattering at him in her soft, incoherent spider tongue. With Star Swirl's magic dissolved by the human's touch, she was incapable of speech and likely incapable of coherent thought, no different from any other attercop that had never known sorrow or love. And yet she still watched him so intently, even after he was too far for her to see.

The human set Star Swirl down in the grass, loosening the cape and setting it down in a jingling little pile as a pillow. The little pony was still gasping for air. The human leaned back on his heels and wrung his hands, unsure of what he ought to do.

After a few awful minutes of wheezing and limp hoof twitches, Star Swirl lifted his head. "Oh, good. You remembered to take my saddlebag along." He pulled himself up with his front hooves to move toward it, the rest of him dragging behind him like a sack of potatoes. "I'm going to need it."

The human watched him totter about on trembling legs for dumbstruck moment before deciding to meet him halfway and brought the bag to him. Assured that Star Swirl's health wasn't in immediate distress, he took his clean knife and went back to the oak tree.

He stalked about the trunk, measuring what branches could support his weight and give him space to maneuver quickly. Attercop seemed fast as normal spiders and he'd need to move cleverly if he was to succeed. He'd hit her with the staff as hard as he could, but the most it had done was break a leg; perhaps crack her shell a bit. Hopefully the knife would be enough this time.

The human had his hand on the first branch when he heard a raspy "Wait."

Star Swirl looked up at the attercop tatting in the moonlight. His ears twitched at a dry little sound dripping down from the branches. It sounded almost like weeping. "Wait," he said again. "Let her be."

"Why?" The man blinked at him, then back up the tree, perplexed. "Are giant spiders dangerous to eat?"

"You eat _spiders_?"

"Well, no. I've never seen one big enough to bother trying." The human tapped the flat of his blade against his hip and grinned. "I'm curious how they are taste after a slow roast and I bet those legs have an excellent crunch." He looked back and raised an eyebrow at the unicorn's unhappy face. "Besides, it tried to eat you first. It is only fair."

"I'd just rather you didn't. Besides, I didn't think you ate things that spoke."

"Giant spiders talk?"

"This one can."

The human glared at the attercop's knothole a few seconds before he let his shoulders sag and climbed back down. "Probably too much trouble to catch anyway."

He curled his legs up and sulked. The human had bad luck with animals in these woods. The few quails and squirrels he'd come upon had escaped easily, their eyes accustomed to the dim light and guarded from pursuit by thick, cumbrous trees. The wealth of Conemara still stuck his ribs, with plenty of runoff food still wrapped in the pack. But his mouth watered at the thought of warm meat and he couldn't live on croissants and cucumbers forever. With the attercop the human wondered if the local wildlife was learning to talk just to spite him.

Little deer prints were scattered all around him in the clearing, as if someone had laid out a dance pattern for him to follow. Judging from the number, more that the four harts he'd seen in town lived here – maybe seven or eight of them at least. How long could all that venison last him? A month? Maybe three if he rationed carefully? Either way, it did him no good now.

"Why didn't you tell me deer could talk?"

Star Swirl looked up from his saddlebag. A jingling pouch dangled from his teeth and a spool of thread lay beside his hoof. "I thought you knew. Nearly everything with hooves can talk. Ponies, elk, cows, minotaur, and even sheep and goats can talk, though they prefer not to."

He considered further explaining that all creatures, from rabbits to rattlesnakes, could speak in some way. It was only a matter of linguistics and consciousness levels. The stargazer decided to keep that information to himself, suspecting things were complicated enough for the human, he looked so distressed.

"How do the griffons deal with this sort of thing?" the human asked. "Or dragons?"

"They don't. Late in the war the pegasi had the advantage of speed due to the griffons putting on so much weight. I do not know how it is with dragons."

"Oh."

Star Swirl pointed to the lump under the human's pack. "You carry that cloak of yours around all the time, so I presumed you'd heard, or… well, she must have screamed at least."

"No room for screaming in a snare. And I was sleeping when I caught it." The human reached into his pack and rubbed his cloak between his fingers. He pushed away the idea of his cloak having a name and a family to go back to before the concept grew too large to ignore.

"We might be able to find you a new cloak in a burgh up ahead." Star Swirl fished out a shiny silver bell and held it up to the light in triumph. "It shan't be expensive to have one commissioned; they aren't in high demand in summertime."

"Who said I'm getting rid of my cloak? I like my deerskin; it's the first decent garment I made on my own."

"Yes, but you could get a better one. Something longer with a hood, so that you might attract less attention."

The human raised an eyebrow. "And a bald sasquatch attracts less attention in a velvet hood?" The idea of a hood was actually tempting, but he wasn't about to let Star Swirl know that.

Star Swirl huffed as he fought to thread the needle with the hooves and teeth, while keeping hold on the bell. "T'would be less… disturbing, at least." He poked himself with the needle and flinched, nearly dropping the thread and the bell.

After the sixth failed attempt to thread the needle, the human reached over to help, but Star Swirl flattened his ears and edged away from him. He hunched over his cape and went on working, ignoring the human's concerned looks. By the time the bell was stitched to the cape the moon had moved several inches across the sky and Star Swirl's front hooves were dotted with pinpricks.

When finished, he wriggled back into his threadbare cape, and grinned ear to ear. The new bell tinkled, bright and shining and lopsided upon his chest. "I am no tailor, but tisn't bad for a little hollow horn."

Star Swirl stood carefully, back legs wobbly and slipping under his weight. "Did you see how I earned it? I called it up, I called it without even meaning to, or else it called me, but the point is I made magic. Illusionary magic made from wants and wishes! The same thing that brought down the Old World's Rainbow and were you watching? Were close enough to see?"

The human smiled back. "I saw some light in the distance and I thought I saw a ghostly stag go by. That was you?"

"It was! I would show you, but I don't have it. I mean, I don't have it at the moment but I can call it back." Star Swirl wobbled into the gash of wildwood the harts left behind. He went so far into the trees all that could be seen of him was his pink tail winking in the firelight. Star Swirl looked up at the sliver of moon nearly swallowed by the dark wood around it. "I **know** can call it back."

"Ye seem to do a good enough job of that already," a familiar voice said. Heartstrings stepped out from behind a tree, lyre tucked in the crook of her elbow. "I don't see why you'd bother keeping up the perytons when no one's about t'see them." She walked towards him, eyes on the long shadow climbing into the dark.

Then she looked up. Her eyes became very wide.

For the first time in her life, Heartstrings dropped her lyre.

The human peered out at the new voice. He stepped forward but paused when this new pony looked at him. Her huge golden eyes shone with tears and when she blinked they cut a mint green path through the dust in her coat. The human put his hands in his pockets and looked away.

Star Swirl put himself between the two of them, but was shouldered aside. The rush knocked his weak hind legs from under him.

Heartstrings approached the human slowly. Not with timid wonder, but with the steady coldness of a mother whose child had come home four hours past curfew. Her withers shook as the brittle whisper cut through the silence. "Where have you been?"

The gap between them was closing fast. The man backed away as if her tears would burn him. It was an absurd sight; the creature that stood tall as a manticore thundered around him and nearly ate an attercop for dinner now cowered against a filthy little minstrel not even half his size.

"Answer me." The human flinched as the mare's voice splintered in her throat. "Answer me. You wretched creature, _**answer**_ me!"

The human blinked and shuffled his foot, his hands still deep in his pockets. "I was… at home?"

Heartstrings shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "Of course you were. You were at home while color faded from my mane and hope withered in my heart. You left. You left us alone and when we needed your help you never came. You're supposed to come when we need you and make everything alright. We needed you and you were at home." Her knees bent under the weight of years. She either laughed or sobbed behind a wall of white tangles. "_Of course_ you were at home. Where else would you be?"

The human stepped forward and caught the mare as she sank down. His finger caught in the mats of her mane as he pulled her into his arms. It was such a useless gesture; trying to hold someone together as they fell apart. But he didn't know what else to do.

The mare's horn flashed gold to push him away from her. The glow vanished as soon as it appeared but it was enough to make the human startle and release his grip. Heartstrings glanced at the spindles of brown fingers in her mane. She had the perfect view of nails nearly black with filth but still beautiful because they were on human hands. The fingers did not smoothly flow through her mane. Instead they struggled in old tangles like fish in a net. "It's not supposed to be like this…"

She suddenly realized the human's warmth was moving away from her. Before he could vanish she cried out and shoving her face into his tunic. Heartstrings twitched her nose at the musky scent, the same one she'd caught on Star Swirl's cape, and began to cry again.

"I'm sorry you were alone," the human softly told her. "It's not good to be alone."

The little mare nuzzled into him. Her horn poked into his stomach, but he didn't seem to notice. "I hate you. You're perfect."

Star Swirl orbited the two of them, twitching his tail and uncomfortable in his own skin. Sounding more desperate than he'd have liked he asked, "Then you know what he is?" A foolish part of him stupidly hoped she had only seen a bald yeti.

The mare sniffed and stared at the green fabric stained with her tears. "What idiot doesn't know a human when they see one? Especially one so absolutely perfect. And I..." She glanced down at herself and cringed at the grey in her mane and burrs in her fur. "I'm just Heartstrings."

The human tilted his head. "Are you supposed to be someone else?"

"Yes. Well, no… but humans want to be with spritely fillies full of promise as they are, ones with ribbons on their tails and the sun in their eyes. Ponies fast enough to keep up on an adventure and beautiful enough to be seen in their company. Humans have no use for an old husk of a unicorn without even a song to offer."

The man smiled lightly. "There is one thing I learned by leaving my city." He lifted her chin and wiped her eyes. "You ponies don't know much about humans."

The mare smiled back with a little hiccup.

Star Swirl cleared his throat. "We really ought to be going. We have already lost a day of travel and there is still much ground to put behind us."

The human looked up in surprise. "Now? But it's the middle of the night."

"A little darkness never hurt anypony."

"Maybe, but tripping over branches in the dark doesn't sound very healthy either." He sat on the forest floor, frowning at the paleness in Star Swirl's face. "Can you even walk? Your legs are still shaking."

"Why, of course I can! I have never felt better in all my life," the stargazed wheezed. He waved the human off with a careless forehoof. "I only tremble in anticipation of our voyage. How much longer can the wildwood go on anyhow?"

"About four miles," Heartstrings said. "Five, if you don't know the way."

Star Swirl's nose wrinkled like a raisin. "I was not addressing you."

"Either way, it would be better to get some rest first." The human was stretching his muscles by the fire, in the manner he often did before sleeping. "We can set out early in the morning at a brisk pace."

The fight was lost. Star Swirl settled in one of the abandoned moss beds, soft and welcoming under his weary body. "Fine. We leave at dawn and not a moment sooner." He turned on his side, away from the sight of Heartstrings curling up beside the human's bony ankles.

* * *

It was late morning in the wildwood when Star Swirl woke. It was not a blurry trickle into consciousness, but a grim stab of awful clarity. The glen was empty, save for the lonely attercop eating a squirrel in the treetops. It was almost noon.

It was rare for him to oversleep, but the trees hid the sun and tricked him into sleeping far past schedule. They should have been on the road hours ago, and the human favored early starts. There wasn't sign of him anywhere. Maybe…

Star Swirl jumped to his feet, suddenly wondering how far the human could have gotten in four hours. Would he be out of the forest and on the road already or would the thick of the trees have slowed him down? Could Star Swirl catch up if he ran? Ponies were much faster than humans; it shouldn't be too hard… if he only knew which direction to go.

The unicorn scurried from one wall of trees to the other, gazing helplessly into rows of identical grey bark. Was the attercop rescue last night the payment for the debt the human owed from the carnival? He cantered north, then thought better of it and went east, then southwest before looking north again. If the contradiction creature had left already without him, should he even bother to follow? It didn't matter, he'd follow him anyway; he had nowhere else to be.

Then, he heard it on the wind. Three creatures were singing. The first was of a meadowlark whistling a four note tune so cheerful it bordered on obnoxious. The second was a man's low hum and the third, the soft, vintage lilt of a mare.

_"As I was walking that ribbon of highway  
I saw above me that endless skyway  
I saw below me that golden valley  
T'was this land, home for my mare and me"_

Star Swirl followed the song around the corner of the copse, a few yards from the hart's clearing and there he found them.

The human sat cross-legged in a spotlight of sunshine that shone down merrily from a great hole in the canopy and made his dark curls shine. Heartstrings was curled up in his lap, resting her head on his knee and singing as the human's comb ran through her mane. Her coat shone in the sun too, the grime and filth gone. A string of geraniums and primroses and forget-me-nots had been woven into her braided tail. A wreath of daisies hung about her neck and a similar one sat upon the human's head in a silly little tilt. Every so often there was a little snowfall of petals as he moved about. Tiny skippers gingerly kissed the blossoms as the meadowlark brightly sang. The only thing missing was a rainbow.

Star Swirl had walked out of the wildwood and into a tapestry. It was worse than being left behind.

"_We roamed and rambled and followed hoofsteps  
To the sparkling sands of the diamond deserts;  
For in me sweet ears, her voice was sounding  
This land was made for_—ow!"

Heartstrings ducked away from the comb, gritting her teeth in a hiss. "Ouch! Oww, ow-ow-ow."

The human smirked. "I don't think that's how the song goes."

"Well, what do you expect when you start pullin' a mane out by the roots?"

"Nonsense, I am only pulling the tangles out." He paused to look over the pony in his lap and pulled out a twig. "Though those things might actually be one and the same. I'm amazed there aren't any bird eggs in here. If I'm lucky these mats might tease out by next winter."

A wry grin curled on Heartstrings' face. "It must've been hard work buildin' a mountain from that molehill."

Star Swirl flattened his ears. It had taken a month to coax a genuine conversation out of the human, but Heartstrings had him chaffing in a matter of hours. He glared at the white victory wreath draped over her shoulders. It didn't seem at all fair; she'd a thirty year head start making friends.

The human fought the tangles gently as he could, gripping a clump of mane at the base so that the comb didn't pull at Heartstrings' scalp. It looked as though he was strangling a cloud to death. His dark eyes glanced up before returning to the tangle. "Hello, Star Swirl. It is good to see you're up. Your leg looks much better."

"Why did you not wake me?" The unicorn approached him with a small frown and stopped a short distance from where the human and the mare sat. A black skipper freckled with yellow spots alighted on his horn before he shook it off. "We were supposed to leave at noon, were we not?"

"I thought you could use the sleep." The man sectioned a panel, squinting at a fraying knot that had mocked his comb for five minutes. "You never seem to get enough sleep and always look so tired." He grinned triumphantly as the knot teased out and the comb cut a clean path. "Heartstrings told me the best way to get over an attercop attack is to sleep it off."

Star Swirl swished his tail and scowled at the way Heartstrings leaned into the comb, now that the worst of the tangles were gone. She was practically purring.

"We decided to sing some while we waited for you to wake up, since she can't play without magic. She knows lots of songs."

"That stands to reason. She is a minstrel."

"Oh, but not just pony songs, she knows some of mine. _Human_ songs like the ones my mother knew! The words are a bit different in places, like sometimes there will be 'mare' instead of 'man', but they are mostly the same. I used to play some of them on my violin before the strings snapped."

Heartstrings brought her head up. "You should have brought it along, I know of a fine luthier that lives a little distance from here that does outstanding work. Cheep, too." She ate a few stray petals that had fallen on the human's shoulder. "I only hope you play better than you sing."

"There is nothing wrong with my singing," the human said. "I think you ponies are just born with perfectly tuned voices. Not one of you is ever off key and you break out into song for no apparent reason."

The human rolled Heartstrings out of his lap and examined the work he'd done. The tips of his fingers ran through her mane, looking like bits of driftwood bobbing in the sea's white froth. "There. Far from perfect, but I don't think I can get it any better than that. I suppose I ought to be happy it's too short to get pinecones stuck in it." With that, he plopped the daisy crown atop her head and sent her off.

Heartstrings admired her bent, rounded reflection staring up from the human's bowl of water. She did a little twirl and flounced in the grass like a filly in a new dress. "Oh no, you did a lovely job. It always spikes and flares out in the front in that way, pay no mind to it."

The human nodded with a little smile as he picked out clumps of hair from his comb, letting them loose on the wind to catch on wildwood branches.

He turned to Star Swirl, sitting by himself in a sulk. The little stargazer watched him in the way a cat does, pointedly looking at him while not looking at him. The human observed him a little while, trying not smile and failing.

"Star Swirl?"

"Yes?" There was a brush of rather forced nonchalance in his voice.

"Would you like a combing, too?"

The unicorn pulled himself up with his nose in the air, swishing his tail haughtily. He hadn't set foot in the halls of House Galaxy in five years, but he could still don his noble airs well as any proper pony in the Kingdom. "I know how to brush my own tail, thank you." If he'd no other vantage against the mare, he could still take comfort in his perfect lineage. "Unlike certain other ponies that shan't be named, _I_ am quite capable of keeping airs in order."

He opened an eye as the human began to put the comb away. "However, I am not opposed to the idea." Star Swirl settled on his knees and moved his threadbare cape out of the way. "But none of that flower weaving nonsense. 'Tis a waste of food."

"You hate eating flowers," said the human.

"Not the point."

The human rolled his shoulders and ran the comb's teeth through blue pony fur. "I think we will leave after this. I did some exploring earlier and found a shortcut. If we take it then the road is only a mile and a half east of here." He paused in thought. "Unless magic makes the moss grow on the southwest side of trees or something ridiculous like that."

"There are forests that consciously get travelers lost," Star Swirl said. "But those are more common in the forests grown over ruins, and this isn't one of them"

"I suppose you mean human ruins."

"Indeed." The shine came back into Star Swirl's eyes as he explained, "No place is quite the same after your kind has touched it. Although, for an entire biome to react in such a way even so long after you've gone there would have to be a great many humans living there once. I suspect it is the same for certain animals as well; recall the dogs of Conemara."

The human took up the pink tail, pleased it was not full of sticks and pinecones and would not take three hours to comb. "How could I not? You left me in that tree for an hour while ferocious hounds drooled for my flesh."

Star Swirl glanced back at him and lifted an eyebrow. "You mean the doe-eyed beagle and fluffy poodle?"

"That poodle had murder in its eyes. And you forget the monstrous black one and the terrible slim one." When the pony just stared at him, unimpressed, he pointed out, "And roving packs of dogs eat people, Star Swirl. It's a fact."

"I keep telling you, the dogs you're thinking of are feral dogs—look, the point is the wildwood is a regular forest. If the road is close then we've not wasted much time after all. The traffic peters out between the Nation's major cities, we ought to have the roads to ourselves." Star Swirl glanced back to obverse the curls the human made in his tail. Instead of dragging listlessly, the tip of his tail curled upward in a gentle arc. "The bad news is the lands going north are fields and orchards and I doubt we'll luck into another place willing to take in a unicorn and his bald ape. We'll be sleeping in the open for a few days."

"Can't we sleep in the orchards? We could promise not to eat any of the fruit or bother anyone." The human gripped his comb tightly and looked away. There were tight lines across his face. "I would rather not sleep on the ground," he said quietly.

Star Swirl frowned sympathetically. "It can't be helped, I'm afraid."

It seemed as if the human had more to say, but he only sighed and ran the comb through Star Swirl's bangs.

Heartstrings trotted over to them, blinking at the human with interest. "Why go through the flat lands at all? Where are we going?"

Star Swirl edged forward to block her path. "The _human_ and _I_ are on a quest." He swished his coiffed tail. "I know not where it is _you_ are going."

"Oh, you are? What sort of quest?" She nipped around Star Swirl's barricade and peered over the human's shoulder. "Are you going to slay the wyvern terrorizing the Northhill? Have you been set to an impossible task? Or perhaps you are simply out to buy a telephone to go with your sports car?"

The human tried to puzzle out what telephones had to do with sports cars and failed entirely. "We are going to see what's become of the other humans. If I can ever chase this tick from Star Swirl's neck, the end of our journey is an audience with General Yarak and his White Roc. And I do not have a sports car, though my grandmother's father had a motorcycle."

Heartstrings jolted as a wave of fear ran through her. She took some time to think before saying, "You surely don't mean the White Terror? The rapacious raptor that reduced the Gryphon Empire to ruin?"

"The very same." Star Swirl put his nose in the air again and smiled at the mare's anxious discouragement. The human took this opportunity to comb out the unicorn's beard. "As you can see, 'tis a place fraught with peril we seek."

"Oh." Heartstrings tilted her head to the side and blinked her big gold eyes. "Then you're going the wrong way, entirely."

The brushing paused. The human said nothing and from this angle Star Swirl couldn't see the human's face, but he could feel the irritation stiffen his arm.

Louder than a dignified stallion ought to be, Star Swirl bit back, "That is entirely untrue! We are on the swiftest route to the Pegasus Hegemony, which currently drifts o'er the northernmost hills, for that is where the winds and rains are sent down. Madam, I have studied the navigational stars for years; tis not a white dwarf or constellation that's escaped my attention. I have worked under the finest cartographers in the Kingdom, and I would thank you to not impose upon my navigational judgment."

Heartstrings blinked at him slowly, unimpressed. "Well, my congratulations on your passin' cartography class, then. But even if ye had a compass blazing 'cross your flank it wouldn't change the fact General Yarak's not flown the Hegemony skies for at least two score years." She leaned her neck over the human's shoulder. "And if your lot ever stuck their nose out their ivory towers and took some scope of happenings with other tribes you'd know that."

"But the pegasus tribe never ventures from their own lands unless they are either dealing out weather or at war, and they've not been at war in years. They'd sooner buck a dragon in the teeth than consort with other pony tribes." Star Swirl glanced up at the human, who wasn't looking at either unicorn, but frowned up at the sky. "The acclaimed generals spend their winter years nesting with their medals in a cirrostratus, regaling new recruits with war stories. Whyever would he leave?"

"Can't say that I know. Maybe some ponies too bold to go among even pegasi," Heartstrings said. "And griffons are not the only ones that fear the Roc."

Star Swirl felt a chill and pressed himself against the human. A pack of awful theories lurked in the back of his mind of all the terrible things he might have done, hissing caveats of what such a pony would want with humans in the first place. "A pegasus too brutish and fierce even for the pegasi. Heavens, could there even be such a thing?"

The human finished brushing out the pink beard—more trouble than it should have been, thanks to Star Swirl's chatter—and took a moment to stretch his long arms and roll his joints. "If the general is not in the north, then where is he?"

"Last place anypony saw him was in the Caulkin Mountains, where rocks are harvested." Heartstrings plucked an A-major on her lyre and recited, "An arching aerie the Earths compose; where hard rain falls, but grass ne'er grows. A pallid pall you must apprise, and know that these are Yarak's skies." The last part was muffled as Heartstrings took human's pack with her teeth and delivered it to him.

"Why does it rain all the time?" the human asked. "Is it a droughted place?"

Star Swirl shrugged, still sticking to the human like a bivalve on shore rocks. "Who can make out the ways of the pegasus tribe? Not I, certainly."

"Hmm." Heartstrings twitched her ears and followed the human's gaze to the jagged patch of blue, the treetops clawing at its sides like starving wastrels. "What will you do if they aren't there? If the general turns out to be a snipe hunt or you discover that the humans have all..." She was not brave enough to finish and instead let the unsaid word lurk like a woodwraith.

The man realigned the stray strands in Star Swirl's mane and leaned back. He scratched the little stallion's silky ears, rubbing the little veins that branched through them. For a time the only sound was the sigh of trees and the gentle flapping of skipper wings.

"Then I will do as I've always done." There was a gentle resignation in the human's voice. "I will go on. What else can I do?"


	10. The Iron Tooth & the Oilskin

_It is midwinter, maybe. It's hard to tell sometimes. _

_Winter seems to get longer with every year and inside the mall time seems to stand still. The kid figures it is still winter because snow muffles the light streaming down from the sky window and he must wear his fur coat at night so his shivering won't keep him awake. Sometimes he wonders if winter is getting back at them for last year, when the light bulbs came alive and gave them an indoor summer._

_Soil coats his hand as he roots out little turnips from the garden, arranging them in a plastic basket next to the runty tomatoes. A garden shrinks when it comes indoors, but the kid knows that a tiny turnip is better than a frozen one. He is sowing seeds to replace the vegetables he's harvested when he hears her. _

_"Hey, kid. C'mere."_

_He dusts the dirt from his pants and goes._

_It used to be she came to him instead, coming forth in her tall, quick way like a car rushing past. Ma always spoke to him that way as they loped in the shadow of crooked iron and crumbling bricks. Her syllables cracked like a whip and fell with her pace. The two of them never sat and talked; it was better to move when you spoke so you never wasted air or time. ("The world's always moving, kid. You'd better keep up.")_

_Ma uses his name all the time but only calls him 'Kid' when it's important. She's always done that, even when he rode in the papoose, strapped against her like a quiver. Neither of them really knows why._

_The cough started a few months ago. At first, they were dry and harmless as falling leaves, the sort that often come from chilled air and leave in a few hours. Except the cough never went away, and eventually came in thick, swampy gasps that tried to tear her chest apart. When those coughs came, his mother crawled into one of the mall's many hollow holes and slept under the watch of pale faceless dolls that dotted the building._

_The kid wanted to follow her, of course, he was worried and wanted to help. But she'd seen that coming. She knew the mall, like the rest of the city, better than he did. She pulled down a thin, flexible gate from the ceiling, once used to keep out thieves, to seal her from her son._

_"You can't come near me," she'd told him. She only lifted the gate to get at her food and drink when it was brought to her, and only then when the kid was far away. Lately all she's done is sleep. Sleep and cough and wheeze. The kid wished she would scold him for loafing around or scold him about his sloppy hunting. _

_So now when his mother calls, voice lamb soft and briar rough from a cough-worn throat, the kid hears. From the other side of the mall he hears and he comes._

_She is where the kid left her, rolled up in a cocoon of blankets and pelts, just as she's been for weeks. The only difference is the bars are gone and she's awake, looking at him. Tawny eyes huge and bright in her dark face, worn thin and haggard like January branches. A puff of dark, coarse hair branches like smoke around her head. The kid and his ma used to joke she should hunt at night, because her skin would melt into the dark._

_The bars are not there. She must have rolled up them up and tucked them away while he was in the garden. The kid brightens at first; it must be a sign that she is feeling better. But the wet coughs and the wheeze in her voice tells him she's not._

_So then, why is the gate up? The kid's steps become slow and hesitant._

_The kid's ma leans against the wall. She sees understanding slowly unfold across her son's face, making him look younger than he is. This conversation will age him, she sees that too. The mall is getting dark; dusk approaches and the kid didn't scrape snow from the skylight yet, the lazy scoundrel. But even in the dim light she sees the shine of his eyes, getting shinier with every timid step he takes. The kid chews his lip, ducking his head into his shoulders, but he never breaks eye contact and he doesn't pause once. She's proud of that._

_A futile surge of maternal instinct rears up in her. She wants to comfort him for what's coming and apologize for the hurt he'll soon carry. If she loved her son any less, she would hug him. _

_But love him she does, so when he is a few feet away she holds up a thin finger and wheezes, "That's far enough."_

_ "Do you want me to get anything?" the kid asks her. He's still growing into his adult voice and it often cracks. "The tomatoes came in good and I caught a rabbit yesterday. You can have them if you want."_

_His mother shakes her head and sits up. She stares at him a moment and says, "Tell me how to filter water."_

_The kid frowns, confused. He's known how to clean water for so long he doesn't even remember learning how to do it. "But I already know how to—"_

_"Tell me anyway."_

_"Use a cloth or sand to make a filter. Or you can boil water instead."_

_She smiles. "Good. Now tell me how to make a fire."_

_ For two hours she drills him on everything he knows. How to care for brooding pigeons, how to skin a hare, how to barricade buildings, how to greet newcomers and how to scare them away. How to pick locks and open cans, how to treat injuries, how to know when he should run and when he should fight. How to scamper up buildings without a ladder, how to set trip wires, how to mend sweaters, and how to handle dangerous animals and people. She drills him until his voice is nearly hoarse as hers._

_Finally, she asks him, "How do you dig holes in permafrost?"_

_Her child is not stupid. In their city there is only one reason to dig frozen ground. A sob wells up in his throat._

_His ma brings down her brow and stares at him harder than she ever has. "Don't." _

_Her voice is a dagger, bright, sharp, and cold. "Don't you dare. Not now. You do not have time. You still have things to do, you hear me? Listen to me, kid. It is winter. The river is frozen, the ducks and fish are gone, and you have to work." Her bony shoulders tremble from effort of keeping her upright. "You are going keep your fires stoked, your birds warm, and your garden growing. It might be a cruel thing to demand, but winter's mean by nature and neither of us can do anything about that. You are going to bury me and then you are going to water your garden, and then you are going to scrape snow off the skyli—LOOK at me, kid. Look at me. You are going to live. You are. Wait for spring. You can cry then. Not now. You will not waste your energy on tears. Do you understand me?"_

_"…Yes, ma."_

_She blinks at him slowly and settles back against the wall. "Well, then?"_

_The kid takes a long, steady breath. "Go to the empty lot and build a fire. The fire will melt the frost and make the soil soft. I use a hatchet or a pickaxe to break it further if I have to. And then I get the shovel and I dig."_

_His mother's smile glints in the dark. "Good. Very, very good. I didn't raise an idiot. Now, sit with me a while. We can watch the sun go down."_

* * *

The human woke and pulled his arms into his tunic against the autumn chill. His breath came slow and hard and his chest was tight, as if someone had sat on him all night. It was also the best sleep he'd had since Conemara.

For the past month, under cover of cornfields and tall grass, sleep only came in small dozes and daytime naps. It was not so terrible after he'd gotten used to it. Being the last one asleep and the first one awake gave him long, lovely hours with his own self for company. He explored the land around him, found night birds to watch, or fished until the moon was pulled down by cornstalk fingers.

The morning the human dreamed of his mother, tawny scrub splayed as far as he could see. There was no cover at all and yet he'd slept from dusk till dawn. The Caulkin Mountains framed the horizon in a line of jagged teeth nipping at the sun. Both were very good signs.

Star Swirl sat in the grass not far away, half his face obscured by fluffy pink bedhead. He had his head in his hooves, glaring at his notebook as if it had offended him. After several minutes of grumbling, he put the notebook away and sighed.

The human rose and went to meet him. "Good morning. Do you know far into the year we are?"

"Week into fall, as of today. Harvest season started the day before yesterday for most of the Earth Pony Nation, unless my almanacs are wrong." He glanced over his shoulder. "Why? Is there a deadline we need to meet? Or perhaps a human ritual that comes with the equinox?"

He shook his head. "It's just that I think today is my birthday."

Star Swirl nickered in amusement. "You think? You don't know for certain?"

"I'm not sure of the exact date, but I know it's a week after the equinox."

"Many happy returns t'you, then!" Heartstrings rushed up behind them, fresh out of sleep, and nuzzled the human's hand. "How old are you now?"

The human wiggled his fingers and did some quick arithmetic. "Five years past twenty. In another five years I'll be middle aged."

Star Swirl frowned. "But you're only a few years older than I am. How could you possibly be middle aged?"

He just shrugged. "I've never heard of anyone in recent history living past sixty-five. Not that I know many people to base it on."

Heartstrings shooed away this morbid talk with a flick of her hoof. "Nevermind all that, we ought to celebrate! We can have some fun in town, maybe fetch a wee cake—"

"I don't think the locals are in the business of cakes," Star Swirl pointed out. The human sagged his shoulders.

"A present, then!"

The human wrinkled his brow. "Why?"

Heartstrings laughed at that until she realized the human was still staring at her, quite confused. "D'you really mean you've never gotten a birthday gift? Ever?"

"I managed to stay alive for another year, isn't that gift enough? I don't think I really need anything else on top of that, and besides, there's nothing I really want." He blinked slowly at mares' eager face. "...I'm getting a present whether I need one or not, aren't I?"

Heartstrings winked. "A bright one, you are."

The human held up a finger before she could go further. "But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not go into town and just meet you here in the afternoon."

"All by yourself? On your birthday? Won't you get lonesome or bored?" She spread a hoof over the field. "Naught but grass an' brush out here."

The human knelt to eye level, though his eye was not on the ponies, but the ground about their hooves. The dirt was pockmarked by tracks of animals that passed during the night. Near his pack lay shells from the bag of pecans he'd planned on eating for breakfast. "Pony towns are a bit crowded for my taste, Heartstrings. I've spent twelve birthdays alone, one more won't hurt. I'm sure I'll find something to do."

He traced two fingers over a hoofprint in the dirt. It was cloven, but the dewclaws were set too wide for a deer and looked nothing like a sheep or goat's. The edges were still soft. "Star Swirl, do pigs know how to talk?"

"I don't believe they do. Why?"

The human grinned. "Just wondering." No, he wouldn't be bored at all.

* * *

Three knives he had.

The first was squat, broad. and jagged-toothed. Not fancy but reliable all the same. The second was a dagger, long and thin with all the hunger and meanness of a cornered rat. The third was longest of all of them, stretching half an arms' length, was neither lean nor fat but a happy inbetween and the best of the knives. It was the oldest of the three, lifetimes older than the human, but it still shone bright. It only left its leather sheath when it had work to do, work higher than cutting branches or skinning pelts. It had only one job and it did it well.

Three knives, all of them iron and fierce and clever and his. The human sucked in the brisk air and nodded to himself. _And three is a good, strong number. I only hope they're enough. _

He knelt in the high grass behind a grove of scrub trees listening to the pond water ripple. Through the branches he watched the rise and fall of a bristly hill as it breathed. The human hadn't expected it to be this big. The pigs he'd seen in books were knee-high and smooth skinned, but the ridge of this of this animal's back was just shy of pony height. The boar had no softness, save its shiny nose and eyes. The human had never seen a pelt like this before; he'd followed its path through a bramble bush but thorns didn't seem to bother it at all. The tusks were nearly the length of Star Swirl's quills. Pigs in books didn't have those either.

There was no time to dig a pit, no good trees for snares or trip-wires and he had no nets. In retrospect, he should have brought his staff along. _I really hope three is enough. _

The wind changed. The snout wrinkled in the air, then snorted it out. The boar lifted his head. The hard hairs along his spine went needle straight.

The human wished he knew more names of his ancestors, he'd run out of ones to ask luck from. Oh, well. The third knife winked from its sheath. Even if he didn't have their names, one of them had given him this knife and that would have to be enough. Dust sprayed under his boot as he stepped from the trees and ran.

The rush of hooves split tawny grass like a duck on the water. The tip of the knife caught the boar's flank as it rushed past. The human knew this not from the blood on his blade but the squeal. The hide wasn't impenetrable, that was good at least.

The boar grunted low and charged. If there was ever to chance to retreat and catch rabbits instead, it was long gone now. The man skittered to the side and lashed out at the grey blur, but didn't connect. He raised himself high jabbed his dagger down into the ridge of bristles as a tusk dug into his thigh. The boar turned as the human flinched, driving the dagger deeper into its back. He clung to the handle and tugged; it barely moved. The human had missed the spine and hit a nerve instead.

The human's foot slipped and twisted under him as he ducked away from the thrashing boar. Falling backwards, he bounced off a low tree and the ground knocked the air out of him. Instinct curled his body inward as he brandished his best knife, useless unless the pig body slammed him. He heard a low grunt and looked up to see tusks rushing to split his stomach open. The little jet eyes glittered, enraged. The thin little dagger stuck out of the bristles like an acupuncture needle. The ground rumbled and the air stank. The human wheezed and winced against the pain in his leg as he dragged himself some useless inches to the right and braced for impact.

A shadow passed overhead. A black blur fell into the scrubland and bounced over the boar's back like a skipping stone, then arced back into the cold sky as the boar screamed. It happened so fast the human wondered if he'd somehow hallucinated in his excitement. Only when the boar flailed and shook its great head the man saw the blood and gory crevice where a beady eye used to be. Half blind and mad with pain, the boar thrashed and thrusted pointlessly, the creature it wanted out of reach. Above, someone laughed, absolutely delighted.

A griffon hovered in the sky, black furred, white feathered, and long in talons. He circled the human and the boar once, low enough to see the gleam in his orange eyes. The human stood on wobbling legs, still breathing hard, and scowled. Was this creature his competition or his own predator? It didn't matter either way, he'd worked too hard for this boar. He found it first, he injured it, it belonged to him. And besides, he wanted his dagger back. The human drew his best, longest knife and braced his legs. This creature wouldn't take his boar or his life without a struggle.

Grooves in the human's boot dug into the dirt as he threw himself at the boar. The iron blade dug long and deep into the pig's side. Not deep enough. The tusks wheeled about but the human was already darting in the opposite direction. He slashed a bristled flank as he went by. The boar rounded on him to charge when claws raked across its back.

The griffon veered low, waving his tail expectantly. He moved his gaze from human to boar and back again. A smile broke on the human's face as he finally understood and rushed the boar. His knife slashed at the bristled sides. The human retreated and the talons came down. The talons lifted, the knife struck again. The griffon caught the boar's ear and held it as the iron knife slid into the pig's soft stomach.

The boar's ear tore as it bolted, already under the griffon's shadow and the human jogging close behind. He wasn't sure if humans could outrun boars, but it hardly mattered. The human had a longer stride, better endurance and was uninjured. Exhaustion and injury did most of the work for him. The dark griffon dived lower, the grass hissing under belly fur until his running paws met the ground.

Ahead, the boar stumbled. The hunters met eyes, nodded, and picked up speed.

The animal was tackled from the left and pinned to the grass, talons digging into its face like a vice, keeping those tusks at a safe distance. On the right fell a two-legged shadow and a metallic gleam. For an eternal second the air was alive with squalls and struggles and stank of blood, sweat, and upturned earth. The knife older than all of them struck the boar's heart and it was over.

The human's legs wobbled as he crouched, leaning on his arms as he caught his breath. All at once his thigh remembered it had been struck, his legs remembered it had been weeks since he last sprinted and the chill came back into the air.

The griffon's red and white head peeked over the boar's shoulder and watched him recover. His yellow beak lingered close to the dead ear as if sharing secrets, talons flopped lazily over the bristled chest. "You are not bad, little lord. Have you never killed a pig before or are you simply out of practice? When you attacked the spine, I wondered if you had simply missed or simply a novice. Speaking of which…

The stiletto dagger sailed over the corpse, landing at the human's feet. "There you are! Your iron tooth, blunted but otherwise safe and sound. It's a foolish venture to attack a creature when you are not prepared, but you are also quick and fierce and not an idiot. Of course, you may not be foolish at all, only very brave. There is often little difference with your sort, if you don't mind my saying so. Now! Heads or tails?"

The man stared up at him for so long the griffon began to wonder if he should try another language. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Do you want heads or tails? Top or bottom? I did a great deal of work, but you were there first and you are the one that killed it, so you get to choose. You may also slice him open if you like, but I'd be better suited for it. But I lay claim on the heart. For as much work as I put in, I've a right to it."

The human made a face. "You're welcome to it. You can have most of the organs if you want if I can get most of the meat."

"Your call, but my father always told me with a warm pair of eyes in your stomach you'll never miss what's coming." The griffon swished his tail distastefully. "Then again, if I remember right, it's the custom of your folk to burn all the blood and flavor out of your food."

The man's head bobbed up to meet the griffon, nose to beak. "You know of my folk?" From the airs of happy novelty radiating from the griffon's feathers, he suspected the answer already. In unison, they both said, "From songs and stories."

The griffon's feathers puffed at his shoulders, giving him the look of wearing a frilled collar and he made a tittering whistle. "Yes, indeed. Lanky bald things with no claws but plenty of mettle that ruled the world. How you did it I don't know and I'm not sure I want to." He nosed the boar onto its back, slid his claws down the soft belly and split it open like a messy parcel. Steam rose into chilled air and the griffon clacked his jaw in anticipation. He made the whistling sound again and rooted his face in the boar's chest. "But any beast so puny that holds a grand lordship like that is worth remembering, don't you think?"

The man smiled. "I think so, yes." He took his broad toothed knife and joined in the red harvest. "Is that why you decided to help me?"

"'Course not. I'm not in the business of charity. You want to get yourself gored that's your business. I don't think you know how to fly, I could have stolen off with your pig and I don't think there's much you could have done about it except screw up your face and stomp your feet."

The griffon's great black wings flapped madly as he struggled with the rib cage, finally tugging out a great red mass. All his feathers puffed with delight as he rolled the heart around in his mouth, then swallowed it whole. "Ahhh, that's the stuff. Let me remedy your question with one of my own: why did you set out to kill this big mean fellow here? There are shining fish in the pond, fluffy bunnies in their holes, and fat geese in the sky. Why this one?"

The human, up to his elbows in sticky redness, glanced up and said, "I was sick of rabbits and I'd never eaten a pig before. I didn't think it'd be so…" With a sweep of his hand he summed up the fallen creature: bristled armor, steadfast legs, tinderbox temper, scimitar face. "So _this_."

"But you must've gotten a good look at him before you ran at him. You could have changed your mind. It would have been smarter to change your mind."

"What, I'm going to spend all morning tracking it and just turn back? The boar was there and I still thought I could do it so I did it. You shouldn't start something unless you intend to finish."

The griffon nodded to himself. "And that middle reason was mine. I saw your hunt, it's been some time since I ate boar, and it has been so long since I hunted with a partner. My nestmates are no fun, they don't like hunting land creatures anymore. I ask you, what's the point of having legs if you never stretch them?" He craned his neck down in a conspiratorial whisper, "I think they're all just frail in the gizzard on account of rumors of rocs."

The human glanced at him, slightly amused, and went back into his work. He fetched his pack, still safe in the stubby mostly useless trees, where kindling and a carving knife waited for him. As the griffon tittered and growled in delight of lungs and livers, the human carefully built his fire and roasted his meat. For a time, neither of them spoke and enjoyed the simple pleasure of their spoils. Neither of them acknowledged the gathering audience of buzzards and a fox that watched and waited for them to finish.

"We are much the same, I think," said the griffon.

"Oh?" The human did not look at him but frowned at his poor carving knife. It was very good for harvesting does and hares, not so much for tough boar skin. All of his knives suffered and dulled today. "How'd you figure that?"

"Why, look no further than what surrounds us, little lord!" He snapped up some entrails and shook excess blood from his feathers. "Observe this scrubland; observe what we two have painted in the glory of our hunt. The crimson tinge on the grass and the scarlet trail that drags behind us, the stickiness squelching beneath our feet. Together we are red and full and happy. We are proud in our talons and iron teeth, as well we should be. It is no easy task to conquer a boar of this magnitude baring tusks longer than winter." The griffon rolled his shoulders and stretched his long body in the sun. "By the by, were you going to take those? The tusks? I think your sort likes to collect things from what they kill."

The human poked the long yellow tusk and flinched at the sharpness of it. If he had dodged in the wrong direction, a different creature might be strewn out in the grass right now. "I don't know. I don't make many things and this is the first time I've killed a boar. I might make a knife, but I have enough of those. You can have them if you like."

"Fierce _and_ generous. What a lucky fellow I am." The griffon took a tusk in his beak and with a few short tugs it came away. "The creatures who could best us are few, especially when we travel in numbers. And yet, for all our boldness, we two have lost our lands to bright little flat-toothed ponies."

The man chewed his meat with no response or opinion but something flickered in the human's eyes, wheeling away and burying itself before it could be seen.

The griffon saw, of course. They see everything that runs. "See those snaggle-tooth crags in the distance?"

"You mean the Caulkins," the human said. "I'm bound for them."

"Are you? Interesting." He washed a paw with his greyish pink tongue. "The mountains you call Caulkin, the red scrub you see about you, they belonged to my clan not long ago. My great aunt fought three days and three nights to win it. My father was hatched there, as was his father before him. My nestmates and I were conceived there, yet we were born many, many miles away. This is the second time I've seen these lands now ruled by ponies." The griffon snatched the boar's liver and shook it a few times before swallowing. "Ponies of the _earth_, no less."

"Do you resent them for it?"

The crest of feathers fluffed and fell at the griffon's neck. "Sometimes. But I am not a sore loser. That is simply the result of lost wars. The pegasi won the crag and by right they may do what they wish with it. If they wish to waste it on wingless nags, that's their business. There is always the chance of reclamation, after all. We may win it back one day, we may not. Time will tell."

The griffon hopped over to the human's side of the boar. Side by side, the human had a new appreciation for his size. The two of them sat exactly at eye level. "If you ask me, if either of us should be upset it is you. Your kin claimed this place before mine, and far, _far_ before the uppity little horses. They galloped over your continents in rainbow herds and simply took them for their own. But you lost no wars, you had no quarrels, you laid no wagers. I don't think you even had the chance to defend what was yours. It is a disgrace."

"I'm sure it wasn't done on purpose," the human protested.

"An egg dropped by accident still breaks."

"There's no fault in living in abandoned houses. The world changed, that's all. Looking at pony towns, even I sometimes forget the land used to belong to someone else. The world's changed," the human repeated. "It happens."

The griffon's orange eyes fixed on the human's, storm cloud wings slowly spreading behind him. "And who changed it, little lord? Who charts the moon's course? Who tells the grass to cover your cobblestones? Who calls down the rain to rust your iron and flood your streets?"

The human had no response for that.

"I have seen it, you know. I have seen the iron towers where your kin once feasted and played and nursed and murdered and built. It still stands, but the little ponies grow bolder, explore it further, smother the pavement with grass, and rot the place with each hoofprint. It is a day's walk from here; you ought to visit before the kudzu strangles it."

The griffon fished around what was left of the boar, harvesting what spare parts he'd not eaten and gathering them tightly his paws. The buzzards broke and scattered as he beat his wings once and rose into the air. He squinted at something in the distance, growled low in his throat, and then looked back down.

"Believe what you wish of the ponies, your life and feelings are your own. But I think you know better. Go to the Caulkins, little lord. Know that I wish you all the luck in the world." He glanced over his shoulder at the snaggle-toothed crags in the distance. "You will need it."

The buzzards filled the hole in the sky where he once had been. They waited until the griffon was a safe distance before they eased into the grass.

* * *

Heartstrings leaned in her seat, happily counting the coins on the table. She still had plenty left over, despite the high price of the human's gift. The wonderful thing about minstrels was they were constantly in demand. Not everypony on the road needed fortunes told or fences mended, but there were always songs somepony hadn't heard since foalhood or a mare whose spirits needed lifting or a colt who longed for news.

Arriving in the midst of harvest season didn't hurt either. You'd be hard pressed to find a grouchy earth pony during harvest season. It was likely the reason why the price was such a bargain, considering the crazy inequine measurements.

"Pardon me." A freckled apprentice not grown into her mark peeked over Heartstrings' shoulder. "It's almost done, ma'am. Miss Gabardine sent me to ask about the color. You never specified."

Heartstrings frowned. She was confident in her choice of cloth in the way of length, weight, and versatility, but had no idea what colors the human favored. "Hmm. Star Swirl?"

Star Swirl turned a page with his nose. He tapped a hoof on the table, glowering at the notebook and muttering to himself. Something about rainbows and witches.

"Star Swirl."

Silence. More page shuffling and hoof taps.

Heartstrings tapped his horn tip. "Star Swirl!"

"What." His eye never left the page.

"What sort of colors does he like?"

A minute passed. Then two. Heartstrings asked again, in case he hadn't heard.

Star Swirl shrugged. "Color's fine."

"Tisn't what I asked, lad."

"Okay."

Heartstrings sighed. It was like pulling teeth with this colt. She'd never managed to wrench more than six syllables from him. When they traveled he was always on the human's opposite side and giving off snide looks when he thought nobody was looking. Heartstrings tried friendly conversation, smiling, singing ballads, apologizing, antagonizing, sharing food, complementing his coat, and complaining about the weather. She was lucky to get a side glance. The way he went on, a pony would think she'd dropped his cat in the well and set his estate on fire.

For a time, Heartstrings worried that she'd done something to upset him. The fancier unicorns were so easy to offend, after all. They'd a thousand rules for politeness and ten thousand ways to break them and the rules varied depending on the family's rank.

But it wasn't just Heartstrings. Star Swirl gave the barest of minimum of attention to every pony he came across before diving back into his notes or taking shelter behind the human. The human was the only creature he ever spoke to or smiled at. It was getting old.

Heartstrings stuck her neck over the table as far as it would go. "Ahem."

Star Swirl blinked slowly at the sudden shadow over his notes. His ears flattened against his head as he rolled his eyes up at her. A sigh dragged out of him. He arched a condescending pink eyebrow. "Is there something that you want?"

"I asked what colors the human liked."

He blinked. "Why?"

Heartstrings inclined a hoof towards the tailor's shop where they sat. "Garments have colors. We need to choose one. I thought you'd know what colors he favors, since you've known him for longer."

"Oh." Star Swirl buried his nose in the notes again. "He likes green."

The apprentice nodded and dashed into the backroom.

Heartstrings sighed. She strummed her lyre, eventually easing into the opening chords to _The Flutter Queene's Court_. Good choice of song. Just long enough to fill another hour with nopony to talk to.

* * *

"Ah, now that's a sight!" Heartstrings held the gift high with her magic and rubbed her cheek on the lining. "Oh, and the inside's softer than a bonny bairn's ear. Isn't it wonderful, Star Swirl?"

Star Swirl mumbled through the pen in his teeth.

The tailor adjusted her monocle. "Indeed. Oilskin is the wisest choice for a promenade through the Caulkins. The lining ought to be enough to keep the cold out, come winter. 'Course, it'd be wiser to not go at all, but there's no reasoning with fools." She shook her head. "Weather's a beast up there; random rains, lightning going every which way, winds that don't know if they're breezes or maelstroms, sleet for no good reason. The pegasi up there just laze about all day letting clouds do as they please and the Hegemony still has the nerve to take rations from the rock farmers. Letting the snow wassets crawl all o'er the place. 'Tis a disgrace."

Heartstrings only hummed brightly as she placed the present in her saddlebag. "We'll keep watch for that, then. Look alive, Star Swirl. We're off."

Fifteen minutes past the city walls, Star Swirl seemed even quieter than usual, if such a thing was possible. He bent his neck at the sky as he walked, the line of his mouth lopsided and wrinkled.

Without looking from the sky he asked, "What is magic?"

Heartstrings knitted her brow, pulling her saddlebag close. She could not tell if this was an accusation or if the lad was asking himself rhetorical questions. "You should know the answer t'that already, methinks. That's your house's whole purpose, isn't it? Spells and stars and the like. Don't know why you ask the likes of me."

Star Swirl snapped his eye to her. "Humor me, then." He thought a moment and added, "Please."

Heartstrings shrugged. "I never put much thought on it, t'tell the truth. I know it's something a unicorn uses to move things about and I know that I use mine for making music, mostly. I know the sweet joy it gives me every day and the warm, smooth tingle in my horn with each lyre pluck." She nodded to herself. "It's a good feeling. Like going home."

"And what else?" Star Swirl was looking directly at her now, his desperate eyes framed by dark circles. It made him look twice his age.

The old mare twitched her ears, confused. "What else? What else is there?"

Star Swirl shook his head with a scowl and a sigh. "I thought as much. _Typical_."

"Oh? And what's that supposed t'mean, then?"

Star Swirl rolled his eyes at her and scoffed, trotting on ahead.

Heartstrings flattened her ears and dashed to catch him. She dug in her hooves, abruptly cutting him off. "Look here, ye wet-eared stripling. I may not have good breedin' and ye might not enjoy me company but that gives ye _no_ right to treat me like some common coxcomb that spat in your oats." She gave an unladylike snort. "Don't give you rights to lure me into questions ye already know I don't have the answers to either."

Star Swirl flicked his tail and shook his head with a dismissive sigh. "You're right. T'was a mistake to even ask."

"Why? Because I'm too ignorant t'give answers you'll accept?"

"Yes!" he snapped. "Yes, that is precisely why. You and every other glass-eyed pony in the Kingdom. Ignorant and... and glad of it!"

"That's tall words for a hollow unicorn, Star Swirl." She edged her face close enough for them to bump noses. "Come, _soothsayer_, why don't _you_ lecture me on what magic is?"

Once that might have hurt Star Swirl, but he'd long since accepted his lot in life. It sat upon his shoulder, whispering as he studied through the night. _Hollow_. He heard it in the scratch of quills on parchment. He tasted in the binding of books he carried, not levitated. He saw it in the piteous eyes of those who knew but never spoke of it. _Hollow. Hollow. Hollow._

But with his every movement, Star Swirl knew better. His bells twitched in the breeze whispering, _You are not. You are not. _

Still, to hear it aloud from Heartstrings made him shrink into his cape. He kicked into a canter, his ears full of his own hoofbeats and tinkling bells. He glanced to see the seafoam-colored pony not far behind. To Heartstrings or to himself, he said, "I cannot tell you what magic is. Not truthfully. I don't think anypony can."

Star Swirl looked at Heartstrings again, his face too old and his eyes too young. "Listen," he said. "House Galaxy's studied and practiced magic for longer than anypony can remember. My parents studied for decades. I studied magic for years. All I learned was this: we have _no idea_ what magic is. None. Because we do not care to find out."

His canter kicked into a gallop, as if he could outrun his frustrations. "Ponies believe magic is for moving the sun, the moon, the quill, the needle and the thread. Magic is always practical; it must always do something, accomplish something and what it accomplishes must always be useful. Magic is never allowed to _be_. Magic is never for magic's sake."

Heartstrings panted to not lose sight of him. "What's the matter with that? Isn't practicality enough?" She practically had to yell over the wind and distance. "We've what we need already. Why seek more if we're content?"

"That's the problem, right there! We are content to languish in ivory towers and till our fields and harvest our raindrops and nothing more. And we never aspire to _be_ anything more. We know our purpose when it etches itself on our flanks and we are content. Content in..." Star Swirl faltered, short of breath. "Content in a sterile vase where nothing grows. We move the heavens with magic, yes. But what else can magic do? Without set purpose what will it do? In fact, why have magic at all? Humans were fine without magic, so why do we have it? Magic mends stitches, plucks lyres, and lifts inkpots. What else? What is magic _for_?"

Star Swirl slowed to a walk. He didn't have the stamina for long gallops even on a good day; ranting theses on top of it left him burnt and gasping. The chilled air clawed his throat as his thin barrel heaved. Star Swirl plopped in the grass and waited as the mare caught up with him. "I think... I think that is what I really want to know. What is the purpose of wizardry, Heartstrings? What's magic for?"

"I can't say that I know, lad." Heartstrings stood above him, breathing hard but far from exhausted. "I hope ye aren't plannin' another sprint like that anytime soon. I don't think either of us are the athletic type."

"Why... why aren't you tired? Aren't you thrice my age?"

Heartstrings grinned. "I jogged. What, you think I'm running meself into the ground just because you are? Runnin's for colts and fillies, they've all the time in the world and everywhere to be. I have half your time and nowhere to be, so I can take all the time I please. We're going to the same place, after all."

Heartstrings looked behind as they went on into the scrub. "We covered a grand distance with that exercise. We'll be back at camp soon. Before we get there, I've a question of me own."

"And that is?"

"Who is Pyrite?"

The stallion's pink eyebrows shot up.

"So you know of him?"

"I worked under him for three years.A wretched old cob who'd no fiefdom so he lorded over a carnival instead. Pinned titles to himself like store bought medals." Star Swirl chuckled to himself. "Called himself 'the Bold'. Titles are only earned or given, never chosen, and the truly great unicorns are titled for what they wear or how they speak. It's supposed to keep us grounded. I thought of telling him he'd chosen a foolish title but I was happier with my jaw unbroken."

It was Heartstrings' turn to raise her eyebrows. For the first time she noticed the notches in Star Swirl's right ear and the unusual scars upon his muzzle.

"He didn't much care for me. Cozen told me it was because I smiled too much and my coat was too bright. Nothing his carnival touched came away happy. He was the sort of pony that only wore a smile after stealing yours." Star Swirl flicked his ears in thought. "After a certain point, some ponies give up on their happiness or their futures and take comfort in dragging down everyone else's instead."

"Where is he now?" Heartstrings asked.

"Last I saw he was in the jaws of a she-manticore. Why?"

Heartstrings ducked in closer and lowered her voice, as if the grass had spies. "On the night I met the human he kicked me out of my sleep. He kicked so hard, I think he might have broken one of my ribs if he hadn't gone to bed without shoes. I looked to find the human thrashing in his sleep like a hooked trout. I had my horn lit t'see what was happening, but when he saw me... "

She looked over her shoulder guiltily. "Star Swirl, I never knew that a human's little eyes could stretch so big. He pulled in all his arms and legs like I was going t'steal them, buried his face in his knees and he wouldn't stop shaking. I was afraid he'd suffocate, he was breathing so hard. I'm amazed it didn't wake you. As I tried to calm him down, he demanded of me where Pyrite was, though in the middle of doing so he seemed to remember he was safe in the wildwood. Still, his fingers didn't leave his neck until he fetched the comb and gave his hands something else to do."

Star Swirl hummed to himself, remembering the human's aversion to sleeping on the ground.

Heartstrings swished her tail. A few blossoms were still braided into them. "I tried playing songs to ease him, but he cringed from my horn's light like attercops in the sun."

Star Swirl pricked his ears. Now that he thought on it, the human always held his staff close whenever Heartstrings played her lyre or levitated objects. After the first week together, Heartstrings and her aura moved out of the human's line of sight when she played. He remembered the relief upon the human's face as he discovered he could break spells with a touch.

The unicorn paused mid-stride and fiddled with his beard. "He's scared of magic."

"Aye."

"'Tis poor choice of phobias." Star Swirl sniffed the flax flowers at his hooves. Flax didn't grown in these lands twenty years ago. Princess Tourmaline sent baskets of flax seed and indigo to the Earth Pony Nation as a sign of goodwill (and to encourage dye production). The tailors and artisans tended these fields thrice a year to ensure the flowers flourished. Rainfall was guaranteed twice a month under the Wingtip Treaty. "He might as well be afraid of air or birdsongs. Magic doesn't just live in the grooves and spirals of alicorns, after all."

Heartstrings looked down the path to the spot where the human would meet them. There was a dark shape in the sky too big for a pegasus and with too many limbs to be a bird. Instinctively she moved closer to other pony. "It's not like we can pick and choose what frightens us, Star Swirl."

"I wish he'd mentioned something earlier. Mayhap we could do something to ease him. A lesson on the common functions of sorcery or the elemental structure of—"

"If he wanted you t'know his plights, he'd have said something," Heartstrings said. "Actually, I'm not even sure if I should have told you. Let him deal with it as he pleases." Changing the subject, she patted the package at her side. "I'm glad we got him this. He gets so cold these days."

Star Swirl hummed, a little perturbed that his idea was cut off before it went anywhere. He wasn't sure when it became "we" either. He had nothing at all to do with the gift outside color suggestions. "Well, if he's still wandering about in the dead of night, there'll be plenty of use in it."

The dark shape came closer. Heartstrings shrank into the grass and pressed herself against Star Swirl's cloak so suddenly he nearly tripped over her.

The red and black griffon passed over their heads and circled once, long and low. Low enough for Star Swirl to see the griffon's feathers were white and not red. A great hunk of entrails shimmered in its claws. Its movements were strong, deliberate, and almost lazy. It wanted to be seen. A fiery, glittering eye blinked at them and Star Swirl felt Heartstrings' breath stop.

The stargazer set his hooves in the dirt and stared back at it. The only part of him that moved was his dark cape and bright beard waving in the breeze. Something wet dripped from the griffon's talons and into the stallion's mane. He felt it sink into his scalp. Star Swirl did not blink.

The griffon circled again, growling like an empty stomach before it lifted out of sight in the cloud-bitten sky.

Star Swirl snorted, slashing the empty air with his horn. "Caitiff."

"It came from the east," Heartstrings said. In the distance, not far from their camp, buzzards drifted like ash in the sky. The east was where they'd left him. "Star Swirl, ye don't think... the griffons don't eat humans, do they?"

"They might. But that fellow was unmarked with nary a feather out of place. Against our human, a griffon would be lucky to escape with a limp."

Heartstrings stood, brushing the dust from her saddlebags. "I suppose that's true." The two of them went on a little way before she said, "I'm sorry, by the way. For calling you hollow. I know that you're not."

"That's alright."

The human met the unicorns as he was coming back from the pond. He shivered from the chill in the air and his own dripping hair, but his step was light and he was already smiling before he saw them. A fox trailed behind him in cautious little steps. The human didn't seem to notice.

"Hello. How was town?"

"It was very nice," Heartstrings chirped. She balanced on three legs as she pulled the parcel out of her saddlebag and offered it to him. "How was your boring empty field?"

"Not boring at all." The human jostled his pack against his shoulder. "I enjoyed myself."

Star Swirl inclined a hoof towards the fox. "Have you made another friend?"

"Hardly. The little menace stole from me and now it won't leave me alone." He shook his fist at the scavenger, who only sat and yawned. "I ought to make it into a pillow."

Star Swirl stretched his neck. In the distance he could just barely make out the blanket of vultures swamping the bones of some unlucky creature. "Ah, I see."

The human squished the side of the bag experimentally. The softness of it surprised him; the way Heartstrings went on about music he'd half expected her to give him a violin. As the unicorns watched, he pulled out a cloak long and green as the Knave's wildwood, eggshell white along the edge. The outer fabric was sturdy and its slick softness reminded him of duck feathers. The lining was thick but soft as rabbit ears. The pockets sewn into the sides were perfect for keeping combs, lockpicks, and knives.

Immediately he tried it on. It clung and warmed him like a sweet memory. Neither the bewildered tailor nor Heartstrings knew exactly how long it ought to be and had overestimated the length. It fluttered at his ankles and dragged along the ground when the human didn't stand at full height. The hood draped over his eyes and when he bent his head nothing of his face could be seen at all. If he wished, the whole of him could hide in these mossy folds, nothing could see him if he did not wish it.

The unicorns peered at him, twitching their ears curiously.

"Well? D'you like it?" asked Heartstrings.

A breeze picked up, the cloak flared and snapped against the human but he felt none of it. He felt more woodwraith than man. The lower half of his face split into a grin. "I do." The human scratched Heartstrings behind the ears. "Indeed, I do. This is a very good present."

Star Swirl nosed the human's other hand. "I helped," he pointed out.

Heartstrings smirked. "Funny, I remember you sitting in the corner for two hours in a sulk."

"I picked out the color. It counts as helping."

The human chuckled and rubbed Star Swirl's ear. "Well, I do like the color."


	11. Where the Rust Met the Vine

The disc was round, rough, and crumbling with the redness of old bloodstains. It was shaped like a bowl and had long holes scored into it. Indentions sank along the sides, as if someone had pressed a thumb in the iron.

Star Swirl poked it with his hoof. "What do you suppose it is? It couldn't be a vessel, the water would leak and the holes are too big for straining… mayhap it tops a bowl instead and the holes let out steam?"

"I don't think so, lad." Heartstrings sniffed the metal, wrinkling her nose at its harsh scent. "It's got the smell of toughness about it. Under all the dirt there's something my nose doesn't know.. harsh and ashy, the way smoke is. It might be a weapon."

"How? There are no sharp edges and it isn't heavy at all. I still think it's for ventilation."

"Don't be daft, those holes obviously meant for fingers and look, the shape is perfect for throwing. I can see it sailing o'er the air now." Heartstrings brushed the disc with her tail. "Hmm. It could be a toy, perhaps? An iron toy for human foals to chase an' toss?"

Star Swirl rolled his eyes. "Please. As if they would fritter their idle hours away when they could be learning how to light their towers or learning how to fly. They are humans, not puppies."

"…I don't think humans can fly, lad."

"No, but they could learn how if they wanted. They make water come from walls and make their own hooves; you don't think they could figure out how to fly if they felt like flying?"

The human leaned over both ponies and took the metal disc, rust falling off it like dandruff. "It's a hubcap. It goes on the wheels of a car."

"Why?" Star Swirl asked.

"Don't know. It just does." The human flipped and tossed the hubcap from hand to hand, studying the little bumps and grooves. There was rust but it had not eaten though the metal. It was still silver in several places; the hubcap hadn't been here very long. "Is it common for these sorts of things to pop up in pony territories?"

Heartstrings tilted her head, a little distracted by the dexterity of fingers. "Hubcaps?"

"Human objects."

"I don't think so. There are things we find but can't identify, but those aren't found where anypony lives."

"We usually find them in human buildings," Star Swirl put in. "My tutor once found a box of glass spheres capped with metal on the bottom and little brass curls in the center. He hung them from his door as wind chimes." He offered a smug grin. "Everyone told me diamond dogs made them, but I knew better."

The human glanced around the little bower of saplings they stood in, as if he expected to discover more hubcaps in the frail branches. In the distance he could make out tall shapes that didn't match the world around them. They were stiff and geometric. Boxy. Human.

His stance reminded Heartstrings of a bony fox on the scent of prey. She could practically see the itch in the human's feet. "What do ye see?"

The human set the hubcap down and walked on in heavy, sharp footsteps. "I'm not sure, but I'm going to find out." He went into a jog, and then a light run, his staff pushing him along like a third leg. The unicorns cantered beside him, the human's green cloak brushing at their withers.

In the two hours they traveled, the human kept silent, and only slowed his pace to let the unicorns catch their breath. How he managed to constantly keep this pace was a marvel. Star Swirl suspected that even at a full sprint the human would not tire, that he would still be on his feet where a pony or stag would have collapsed from exhaustion. What would it be like to be on the wrong side of such a creature? Star Swirl found himself glad that he was an ally and not an enemy.

Heartstrings dashed ahead of him, waiting on antsy hooves for the stallion to catch up before she sprang like a lamb and pronked away.

"That's a good way to use up energy, you know." Star Swirl rumpled his face. "Act your age, for stars' sake."

The mare giggled at the wrinkles lining his face in a grumpy cob's frown and flicked her snowy tail. "You first."

The three of them soon left the saplings for older woodlands where cottonwoods stood aloof of each other, as if in a quarrel. It was here the human finally stopped. There was no doubt of it now; those were the hard-lines of human towers and that was a human city. Or what was left of it.

Heartstrings sniffed the air. It was tinged with the hubcap's scent: old, rusted and acrid. But that smell couldn't be the city; it was still at least a mile away.

Star Swirl bumped her haunch. "Watch your hooves."

She glanced at the rocks littering the grass, all different sizes and oddly shaped with sharp, bright edges. They weren't rocks at all, but shards of glass. Heartstrings lifted one of the larger pieces with her magic, turning it from side to side. It was etched with little letters. "Here, Star Swirl. Make use of your education and tell me what this says. I don't think it's Equine.

A spark of recognition lit Star Swirl's eyes. "It's not. It isn't any of our languages." He pointed a hoof toward the cloaked figure stooped in the distance. "It's his. Human! We've found a—"

"I know. There's more over here." The human stalked over a carpet of glass jars in thirds and halves and wholes. Crinkled bits of bleached plastic rocked in the breeze. The man held a tin case marked with a red symbol, staring at it as if the contents might magically appear if he looked long enough. He set it down and began rooting through the other scattered objects for something useful when Star Swirl cried out again.

"Is something the matter?"

"No, but…" The words jumbled in Star Swirl's mouth. "I found… it's… well. Um. You'll want to see this."

The unicorns stood on a little ridge where the land dipped and leaned low. It might have been a pond or a quarry once upon a time. Misplaced bricks and pipes leading nowhere sprouted from the bottom, but that was not what held the ponies' attention.

The human peered into the pit and pulled his cloak in on himself. "Oh."

Two rust-spotted vehicles lay at the bottom of the ridge. The pickup truck was nearly in two pieces, wheels stuck in the air like a dead cockroach and bent over the rocks as if it had been cracked like an egg. All that held it together were thin strips of yellow metal and a young spruce tree growing through the windows and windshield, propping up the vehicle like an easel. Yellow leaves floated in the murky pools of water in the truck bed.

The human didn't know the proper name for the second massive vehicle lying on its side as if napping. It was too big for a car and unlike other supply trucks it wasn't meant to tow trailers. It was all one solid block, a box on wheels. The frame was heavy, rounded, and at least three feet taller than the pickup truck. It was made of sterner stuff than a humble steel cage. The headlights were unbroken, as were all seven of the dark windows. The titanic bumpers were unrusted and while the white paint had greyed with filth and time, it was still visible. The tires looked almost good enough to drive on and the engine was intact.

The old machine was in fantastic condition if not for one detail: three jagged slashes in the metal walls than ran from roof to undercarriage. It was as if it had been torn open the same way the boar had under griffon talons. The corners of the roof pinched and bunched like a clutched handkerchief. Open supply canisters and tins and little glass jars bled into the grass around it, no different than the broken piles of debris they found earlier.

Heartstrings busied herself investigating the tough scales of the tires and the strange glass— black mirrors on one side but clear on the other. Regular mirrors stuck out from the sides and hanging inside the iron carriage as well. The driver must have been very vain.

The human approached carefully, peeking around the great bumper before he climbed atop the vehicle. The metal didn't give under his weight and the sound of boots didn't reverberate, more like iron walls of a ship than the thin aluminum coat of cars.

Inside was a sparse world of dust, leather, and glass. A family of terrified raccoons stared at him from the backseat where clouds of yellow stuffing burst from the seams. Something gleamed next to them. The human shooed the little animals away with his staff and slipped through the lacerated metal for a closer look.

Star Swirl watched him from the ground, gingerly touching the ugly metal wounds with his hoof. "What can kill something made of armor?" he wondered. "I don't think even dragons can make tears like these…not with their claws. Teeth, perhaps, but these aren't toothmarks." He stomped upon the windshield, but it didn't even crack. "Do you suppose it simply died and fell into the ravine and the humans had to cut themselves out?"

"It's possible." The man poked the raccoons away from him with the staff as his free hand tossed out the thing he found. It was long, black, and shiny, blunt on one end with a smooth tube at the other. It was entirely inelegant and made an awkward club.

Star Swirl sniffed at the round opening, "What have you found?"

The human frowned and lifted it out of his reach. "You shouldn't put your face there."

"Why? 'Tis but a chunk of metal. Not even sharp."

"You don't strike with it." He popped the thing open like a walnut and eyed the insides. "It's some sort of rifle. You shoot with it." It seemed a fine rifle, too. Even the human with his small frame of reference knew that.

"What does it shoot?" Heartstrings asked. "Arrows?"

"Little bits of metal. Ones like this can hit a bear from miles away before the old thing even knows what hit it."

Star Swirl balanced on his back legs to get a better look. "Might we see you use it?"

The human laughed. "Of course not. First of all, it's not loaded. Second of all, guns are for girls. How ridiculous would it look, a man my age walking around with a weapon meant for mothers and brides strapped to his back?" He looked at the brassy shells littering the wounded vehicle. "Rifles are also useful for air attacks. I wonder what happened to these ladies."

There was nothing else to salvage from the vehicles but broken glass and coonskins. The human and his companions moved on and into the city.

Slowly but surely, the land under their boots and horseshoes changed. Grass thinned, loamy soil morphed into asphalt, and skeletal skyscrapers draped shadows over them like refugee blankets.

Star Swirl tripped over his own legs trying to look at everything at once. The full scope of iron towers humbled him and the glint of unpolished metal set him wandering off, only to have his cape caught and led back by the human's hand. The unicorn couldn't help himself. There was so much to see here. So much to know. Why were these signs yellow? Why was this part of the street colored red? What was that wire for? Where did that pipe lead? How tall was that bridge? Why was a ladder crawling up that building? Star Swirl longed to voice all of these questions, but something in the human's stance stopped him.

The man moved in slow, respectful steps and kept his companions close. To go among brick and steel lifted his spirits and made his heart thick with homesick wonder, but he wrangled the urge to run and explore. These bricks were not his and there was always danger in a city that did not belong to you.

This city was greener than it was grey. Saplings shot from the concrete in little shocks of gold and red, trembling like skinny flags. Hawks nested in crumbling conference rooms and executive suites. Bats and naked tailed possums slept in the shade of parking garages. Long legged tabbies stalked rats in the guts of restaurants. Foxed played in hollow pantries. Kudzu curled over the bulbs of streetlamps. Wings rustled the dust and paws scurried in dirt.

Life flourished in every crevice. Truly, this was a dead city.

In a plaza crawling with moss stood a tower unlike the others. It was thin and even taller than its neighbors and the shining sides were made of mirrors. It blazed in the autumn sunshine, not one of the gleaming tiles broken. Scuffed, faded, scratched, bent, and dull, but otherwise standing proud and ignorant of the decay around it.

The man paused and watched his reflection for a while, eyeing the pale scars on his limbs, the artery lines in his neck, the fall of soft, dark curls around his ears, the rings under his eyes, and the green hood pooling at his shoulders. He watched as if he might forget what he looked like. And then he moved his eye and watched the reflected still, empty city sprawling above, around, and behind him.

The human found himself missing people he had never known, seeking hidden histories in the brick, longing for light filling tiny windows. He had known it would be like this. He had. The griffon had warned him. He knew.

But something in this ugly, beautiful place where the rust met the vine hurt him in ways he didn't expect. It called up something the human never knew he had: the quiet, stupid hope that he would be wrong.

The human stared at the tower like a child who'd never seen death before, waiting for a flattened cat to open its eyes. Though he knew better, he made a sign for silence and put his fingers to his mouth. He whistled one long note, two short ones, and then one long note again. It was so sharp Heartstrings and Star Swirl flattened their ears against it. The man waited a few silent seconds, frowned and then whistled again. He whistled until he ran out of breath to whistle with.

Heartstrings nosed the human's clenched fist. He twisted his fingers in her mane so tightly it hurt, but the mare just gritted her teeth and let him. They listened together as the whistle's echo faded into the street.

In the tower's reflection the sky shrank under white clouds. Heartstrings felt the back of her neck prickle, as if a storm was brewing. She twitched her ears and looked over her shoulder into the distance. Something seemed different all of a sudden.

Star Swirl tapped her shoulder. "Hey, we're moving again." Indeed, the human was already almost a block away and somehow Heartstrings hadn't even noticed. "What are you looking at?"

The mare followed him slowly, with her eyes still on the sky behind her. Wasn't the sky clear a moment ago? "I can't see the mountains," she whispered. "Not even a little. Makes me nervous." The clouds piled upon each other, lumpy and solid as a pile of stones.

"They're probably behind the buildings," Star Swirl said. "Places that belong to humans don't fit in with the world around it and magic doesn't behave, if it stirs at all. 'Tis only the way of the land. Come along before we lose sight of the human. I don't fancy hunting for him in this labyrinth."

"Hm. I suppose."

Behind her, the cloud shifted. Heartstrings thought she saw something appear and disappear in the reflection of the sky: round, glossy and dark. As if the cloud had blinked.

"Star Swirl…"

"Yes?"

Heartstrings looked again. There was only a long train of cumulous lazing over the mountaintops.

"Nothing."

They found the human scaling a wire fence, slipping over the top easy as a lizard. He had some trouble when the end of his cloak caught on the barbs, but soon the human clung to the opposite side of the fence, landing on all fours in a haze of dust. He waved at the little ponies on the other side.

The human poked at the gate with a lockpick. "It's about time you caught up." The gate let in the unicorns with a creaky yawn. The man jabbed a thumb at the squat building behind him, pale bricked with crosshatch bars guarding the windows. "I found this thing."

Heartstrings hummed at the razor wire topping the gate. "What sort of place is it? I don't think it's keen on unwelcome comp'ny."

A grin curled the human's mouth. "That's why I'm here. Anything guarded has something worth guarding. The locks and windows are unbroken, I don't think anyone's rooted through it yet." He ran one hand over the series of locks upon the front door while fishing for a proper pick with the other. "I think it's either a prison for criminals or a schoolhouse for children. Or a prison for children. I can never tell the difference, they both look so similar."

Star Swirl investigated colorful scrawls upon the brick, bright letters twisted to the point of no longer being letters. He couldn't tell if it was the work of vandals or artists. "I've been meaning to ask, why are there no cars in this city? There were so many in the pictures."

"Probably went with everybody else. It's how they—_we_—traveled in the Old World. You know that, Star Swirl." The man glanced from his lockpick at the street full of weeds and wildflowers. He remembered the rusted station wagon by the mall and the little convertible resting outside his library at home. To see none at all _was_ a bit odd. A city without cars was like a city without rats.

One by one the locks clicked open and the door swung inward to reveal a wide room filled with twelve large circular tables. A thick partition of glass-topped metal sectioned off the back quarter of the room. A pile of warped plastic trays and rusty forks scattered behind it. The roof dipped in to meet them, the center blown inside out to let in the breeze. Towards the back, pots and pans and sinks overflowed with rainwater.

Heartstrings stared at a tattered red and gray banner dangling lopsided from the wall. A crude picture of a tiger snarled at her. "So which is it?"

The human moved a little red chair out of the way and made a beeline for the glass structure. "School." His eyes skimmed over the rusty utensils and rotten cardboard a moment before diving into the cabinets lined up along the wall. The little doors were rotted to the point where locks were useless and they fell away with a few tugs. The man wasted no time in diving in for a thorough supply search. Expired cans rolled away in droves.

Star Swirl aimlessly circled the room, squishing on a carpet of wet yellow leaves and warped linoleum. He paused to squint at words in a language he didn't know before circling again. It would just be his luck to find a dining hall, the least interesting part of an academy. The chairs modeled for a little human's long back and short legs were vaguely interesting, but that was it.

Heartstrings perched on one of the tables and quietly watched. Up here she had a clear view of the human's search and did not have to look at the chairs too small for adults. She wished they had discovered a prison instead.

Midway through the search, the human began to sing to himself in that raw, unkempt voice of his that kept wandering off key. He often sang these days. This time it was the ballad of someone named Frankie and her sweetheart, Albert, and how their love died in bloodshed and infidelity.

"Does anyone in human ballads get happy endings?"

"Sometimes," the human said. "Sometimes not. That's just the way stories are sometimes. Tam Lin and Janet come out alright, but William and Margaret don't. Stagger Lee won, too."

Heartstrings frowned. "Stagger Lee was the one that went about unfairly killin' people because he'd lost a gamble, wasn't he?"

"You asked who got happy endings, not who deserved them." The human crowed in triumph and held out a jar of salt, still perfectly sealed.

Heartstrings twitched her ears. "Salt's a hard habit to break. Are ye sure—"

Powdery rubble dribbled from the ceiling and the rafters creaked. Something unseen quietly growled. Star Swirl looked up from the other side of the room, trading a worried glance with Heartstrings.

"You can do more with salt than just eat it." The human stored the jar in his pack, careful to keep it cushioned. Then, in a voice calm and quiet as empty sky he said, "We are being followed."

He fetched his staff and motioned the ponies over to him. "I'd rather not leave the way we came. Keep your ears up."

The three of them left the room for a fat hallway shedding painted skin. Posters peeling from the walls advised them to read and not pollute. Many rooms passed by, housing clutches of square desks. In some rooms they huddled in groups, in others they stood in orderly rows, and dozens of small dusty chairs stood with all of them.

The human kept his eyes on the ceiling. It was composed of a series of pale moldy tiles, square caverns dotting where they fell through. As they went on the tiles faded to rafters, vents, and broken lights. The roof groaned and little feet scampered in the walls. The human's hand drifted lazily at his sides and came away holding a knife.

Just ahead the hallway stretched into a maw of daylight. As the roof and walls deteriorated around them, Heartstrings could no longer tell if they were outside or inside.

The ghost of white stripes ran circled patterns over rotten floorboards that keened with every step. All four sides guarded by tall poles, each one topped by a wooden boards that dangled nets of steel mesh. Iron rafters arced and spread like a ribcage, delicately bracing what was left of a roof between them.

The steel mesh jingled, though there was no breeze. A shadow darted in the corner. A sprinkle of plaster and splinters fell.

Heartstrings heard someone yell as she fell under the weight of something small and heavy. Needles dug into her shoulders, something hard and rough and scaly roped around her barrel, lashing at her neck. A snapping jaw just missed her ear. She bucked and rolled, but the hold wouldn't give. Heartstrings barely saw the flash of metal before a sheet of green flapped across her eyes. The dead building echoed with a gargling shriek and the weight dropped from her back.

Breathing hard, Heartstrings looked up to see a wiry yellow dragon no bigger than a housecat twisting in the human's tangled cloak. Its two legs kicked as it bit the human's knife with two rows of serrated teeth. With a gargled hiss, it scrambled free and lifted into the air on leathery wings, lashing a tail twice the length of its body. Blood trickled from its haunch.

Another one, red scaled under purple bruises, dove from Star Swirl's kicking hooves. A third, olive green and stub-nosed, bit at the unicorn's pink tail before the human swung at it with his staff. It wheeled to bite the man's arm before Heartstrings caught the lashing tail in her teeth long enough for Star Swirl to kick the beast's head in. The red wyvern swooped into the rafters and crawled along like a bat, gripping with claws on the tips of its wings.

Heartstrings pricked her ears at air snapping under wings and lit her horn. A bone-white wyvern hovered in a gold halo of magic, jaws inches away from her head. The aura dropped as the human's staff cracked against its skull and it went flying across the room. It hit a wall with a wet thud and did not rise again.

The man ducked as the yellow one swooped down and away at his head. "Aren't dragons supposed to be bigger?"

"They're still young yet—_away_, you wretch!" The red wyvern hadn't given up on Star Swirl, circling just out of reach of sharp horn and hard hooves. "But if these aren't enough of a challenge you're welcome to wait a couple decades."

The human swatted at the yellow tail lashing his face. "I'm fine with this size, thanks." He struck the beast's jaw, knocking it from the air. It stumbled only a moment before righting itself and wheeling out of reach.

The yellow wyvern clicked its jaw twice. Its red and green kin escaped their attackers and rose to meet their brother in the air. The three of them swooped and wheeled, clicking and burbling and hissing at each other. Their round eyes never left the troublesome creatures scowling below them. The olive one stuck out its split tongue.

"Nasty ankle biters. Did their ma teach 'em no manners?" Heartstrings snorted and tossed her disheveled mane. "Rude."

"Be grateful the babes of dragonfolk raise themselves, Heartstrings. I'd bet my bells they're the brood of the wyvern besieging North Hill." Star Swirl moved in the join his companions so that eyes guarded all sides. "At least they aren't fire breathers yet."

The wyvern triplets swooped as one in a whirlwind of scales and teeth, wing beats in perfect sync as they fell upon their targets. The human caught the red one with his knife before he felt teeth sink in base of his neck, digging deep and deeper into muscle. The collar of his shirt grew damp. The little dragon weighed like a sack of wet cement and the human bent low under it. His arm struggled against the tail wrapped around it. His ears filled with burbling and hissing. He could hardly breathe against the smell of ash and lye.

Heartstrings' magic flashed and died, too close to the human to be any use. Star Swirl's cape tangled with wings. Someone screamed, though it was impossible to tell who. The human felt claws dig into his side, ripping past the cloak and tunic and into skin, and deeper still and—and then gone.

The wyverns stopped.

It was neither a trickling halt nor a pensive, reluctant hover. They did not reconsider and they did not double back. The three little wyverns simply froze upon the ground as if statues. Their jaws still bore bloody teeth in mid-snarl.

Tired and bleeding, the human and the unicorns stood. One by one, the wyverns fluttered to the ground, gentle as plastic bags in the wind.

The scrawny leader blinked its swollen eye and warbled in the back of its throat, its thin yellow tail clutching at itself. Behind it, the other wyverns rolled their bulbous orange eyes up and up and up, staring at nothing. A reedy whimper squeezed from one dragon to the other.

The human leaned against his staff, pressed a hand on his bloody neck, and glowered. Heartstrings tilted her head and sniffed at the air. Star Swirl nickered and fidgeted under his cape.

The wyverns took a collective step back. Then another.

Bits of plaster crumbled from what was left of the ceiling. The wyverns snapped from their trance and fled. Tumbling over each other, they scrambled into a gap in the wall.

Star Swirl swiveled his ears at their little claws clicking on pipes and fading into the distance.

Heartstrings smelled rain, though the ache in her bones that foretold a storm was mysteriously absent. The sky held nothing but white clouds.

The human frowned. It would be safer to crawl up to the rafters or fly away. Why duck into the walls? He dug his nails into the wood of his staff.

It was then they realized: the city was still. No bird sang. No rat scampered. The breeze dared not move. Under his cloak the human grew cold.

The sun dimmed. The clouds pulled together in the sky until it was all one white rolling stratus, perfectly smooth. The air grew wet and thick. A pallid pall settled on the skyscrapers.

The cloud blinked.

And the White Roc came down.


End file.
